MSU true freshman Hall starring for the Bobcats

Tyler Hall has quickly made a name for himself as a freshman for the Montana State men’s basketball team.

On Thursday night, he took it to a whole other level.

Brian Fish’s Bobcats found the bottom of the net on a Big Sky record 25 3-pointers in a 101-58 beat down of Northern Arizona at Worthington Arena, and Tyler Hall, who’s on pace to shatter nearly every freshman record imaginable at MSU, hit eight of them. On 11 attempts. He scored 29 points.

And for that, the 6-foot-5 guard from Rock Island, Ill., found his way on SportsCenter, and a worldwide audience, at least for a few seconds, saw what all of Montana has been seeing for some time now: a special player.

“He’s bouncing back a little bit from his couple-game slump where people skewed defenses toward him,” Fish said of Hall. “Outside of maybe one or two where I got him (the ball) late in the shot clock I thought 12 of his 14 shots were in-rhythm shots and his teammates found him.”

Hall, who reportedly passed down several major Division I offers to come to MSU, has already blown past Larry Chanay’s freshman scoring record of 407 points. He accomplished that feat in just 23 games and his 3-point shooting exploits – he’s made 72 of them – are atop the MSU rookie record books. The Bobcats still have six games left in the regular season, then a conference tournament in Reno, Nev.

“He reminds me a lot of Joe Young, the young man we had at Oregon that is playing for the Indiana Pacers right now,” Fish, who was an assistant coach for the Ducks for four years prior to coming to Bozeman, said in an article published in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle earlier this week.

Hall is fifth in the Big Sky in scoring at 18.3 points per game The next best freshman, North Dakota’s Geno Crandall, is 26th (10.5). His free-throw percentage (84.3) is fourth in the league, and his percent from distance (43.1) is fifth.

The Cats, 11-13 overall and 6-6 in conference, continue their home court advantage Saturday afternoon at 2 when Southern Utah (4-18, 2-10) visits Worthington Arena. The Bobcats fell to the Thunderbirds (93-82) back on New Year’s Eve despite 36 markers from Hall.

“This team beat us a month ago,” Fish said. “They beat us pretty bad, and they put us in a tough two days to have to get ready (for the next game). (MSU’s players) remember that, and I think they’re past (Thursday’s win). I’d be real disappointed if we weren’t ready to play (Saturday).”

THEMONTANA MEN, meanwhile, notched a convincing 86-53 victory over the Thunderbirds on Thursday night. Travis DeCuire’s squad hopes to remain atop the Big Sky Conference after Saturday’s game against Northern Arizona (4-19, 2-10), set for 7 p.m. at Dahlberg Arena.

The Grizzlies, which made 12 of 17 triples in the victory and improved to 11-1 in games in which they scored 75 points or more, are 10-2 in league play and 15-8 overall.

Six-foot-8 big man Martin Breunig continued his stellar play, scoring 20 points and hauling in seven rebounds. The versatile post is second in the league in points per game (19.2) and fifth in rebounding (8.7). He’s putting up 20.7 points a game in conference action.

Walter Wright (15 ppg in conference play), Michael Oguine (11.3) and Brandon Gfeller (10.3) are three other key contributors for the Grizzlies.