Frontier Notebook: Resiliency is key in early Frontier play

Talk about bouncing back. Entering the second week of January, there were a lot of Frontier Conference men's and women's basketball teams that need to rebound.

And this past week, many of them did.

Perhaps no one in the Frontier, though, has bounced back bigger and better than the Montana State University-Northern Lights though. After losing to Montana Western Jan. 4, to fall to 0-3 in the Frontier, the Lights have come roaring back to life. In the last seven days, Northern beat then No. 10 LC State and then No. 22 Providence, then came home and took down Montana Tech, which had been on the rise itself.

With the three wins in tow, the Lights are right back in the hunt in the Frontier, sitting at 3-3, which puts them in a crazy five-way tie for second place.

Of course, Northern isn't the only team to respond to adversity. After what looked like a devastating loss to Rocky Mountain College last week, the Carroll College men responded with two straight wins, and after getting swept at Northern and Providence, then losing to Carroll at home, LC State came right back with a big win itself.

On the women's side, Western has won two in a row after its shocking loss at UP in Great Falls, while the Northern women got over the hump against Montana Tech Saturday night. The Skylights had lost two heartbreakers in a row, before finally beating the Orediggers in overtime in the Armory Gymnasium.

So, with where things stand in the Frontier right now, it looks like there's no team in either the men's or women's side that will above having to respond to adversity this season. The league is just too good and too deep for any one team to run away from the rest.

Weird Schedule

Frontier fans may be wondering why they won't see certain teams on their schedule for long periods of time. Well, that's just the way the cookie crumbled in what is the third year of each team in the league playing each other three times.

For instance. Northern opened league play in November with the Rocky Mountain College/Carroll College road trip. Now, two weeks into 2019, the Lights and Skylights have each played every team once. So, in normal years, it would stand to reason that Northern would be playing Carroll and Rocky this weekend, but in fact, MSU-N will travel to Western, LC State, Great Falls and Montana Tech for rematches with those four teams, before playing RMC and Carroll a second time. Northern also plays in Great Falls twice before hosting Providence in February, the only meeting between the two rivals in Havre this season.

Similarly, Tech opened its Frontier schedule against Western and LCSC last month, but the Orediggers will have played every other team in the league twice before they play the Bulldogs and Warriors a second time.

So, once again, the Frontier is showing, for better or worse, it certainly has a unique schedule.

Defense

There's no denying, especially on the men's side, that scoring is up in the Frontier this season. But that doesn't mean defense isn't being played.

In fact, even with so many high-scoring games, some of the best defensive teams in the country reside in the Frontier.

On the women's side, five teams, including Northern, are allowing under 55 ppg. Western is the top defensive team in the country, allowing just 46 ppg, while Rocky allows just 51, Carroll 52, MSU-N 57 and LC State 58 points per outing.

With six men's teams averaging 90 or more points per game, scoring defense is up a bit this season, but LC State's 63 points allowed per game is still pretty impressive considering how good the offenses are in the conference.

Frontier Honors

Carroll College star Match Burnham was named the Frontier Conference Men's Basketball Player of the Week. Burnham, a 6-8 senior from Spangle, Washington, averaged 28 points and five rebounds per game in Carroll's wins over Lewis-Clark State and Montana Western last week. He was also 11 for 13 from the free throw-line. Northern's Caulin Bakalarski was also nominated for the award.

Montana Western senior guard Brianna King was named the Frontier Women's Player of the Week. King is a 5-5 senior from Spokane, Washington. She averaged 21 points, six rebounds and five assists last week in Western's sweep of Rocky and Carroll. King also scored her 1000th career point as a Bulldog. Northern's Tiara Gilham was also nominated for the award.