Looks like Wayne Tinkle has the Griz reloaded for another run at the Big Sky title next season.
Missoulian
Montana has signed junior college standout Spencer Coleman to a National Letter of Intent, seventh-year Grizzly head coach Wayne Tinkle announced Monday.
A 6-foot-6, 210-pound forward from Eugene, Ore., Coleman played for the Eastern Arizona College Gila Monsters the past two seasons. He will be a junior at Montana next season.
This past season Coleman …

Montana men’s basketball coach Wayne Tinkle has filled a need for a big man, signing 6-foot-11 Marko Kovacevic of Western Nebraska Community College to a national letter of intent. Kovacevic, from Beograde, Serbia, averaged 11.7 points and 7.8 rebounds a game for Western Nebraska last season as a sophomore. He shot 66 percent from the field and 59 percent from the free-throw line. The Big Sky champion Griz were left …

Here’s the Associated Press story on NAU’s hiring of Memphis assistant Jack Murphy:
By JOHN MARSHALL
Associated Press
Northern Arizona has hired Memphis assistant Jack Murphy to rebuild a program that labored through a difficult season.
An assistant under Josh Pastner at Memphis the past three seasons, Murphy takes over a Lumberjacks team that lost its coach less than a month into the season and ended it on a school-record 16-game losing streak.
“A lot …

Here’s a Q&A UM sports information director Joel Carlson did with Griz coach Wayne Tinkle:
With the Montana men’s basketball team coming off a historic season, Joslyn Tinkle playing in her third Final Four in her three seasons at Stanford and the Masters in full swing, it felt like the right time to sit down and catch up with Griz coach Wayne Tinkle.
Q: What has Joslyn’s experience been like so far …

The only thing the Home Office likes more than college basketball is history, so here’s a combination of the two:
Mike Lewis, a dominant center for Missoula County High School in the early 1960s, has long been the answer to this trivia question: Who is the only Montanan to start a game in the NCAA tournament’s Final Four? The 6-foot-8 Lewis did it for Duke as a sophomore in 1966 when …

The Home Office has been burning the keys on its calculator while figuring out the obstacles mid-majors face when taking on the nation’s elite in the NCAA tournament.
There are plenty of reasons why Montana’s basketball and football teams roam different levels of the NCAA Division I food chain. In fact, there are millions of them.
To put it bluntly, money talks.
Financial figures compiled by the federal government offer some idea of …

Montana point guard Will Cherry has added another honor to his list of accolades from this season, as he was one of 25 players named to the 2012 Lou Henson Mid-Major All-America team on Tuesday.
The All-America list is one team consisting of 25 players.
Cherry was also recently selected to the 10-player All-District VIII basketball team by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association (USBWA).
“It’s a great accomplishment,” Cherry said. “People are really …

Several readers have left comments on my stories about the Grizzlies’ loss to Wisconsin in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, saying that they wished the Griz played at a lower level so that they would have a chance to win a national championship, like the football team does.
I believe those remarks are well-intentioned, but off the mark. In fact, I’d be willing to bet my next paycheck that not one …

With many thanks to our home office on Vashon, Island, Wash., we give you this, its final analysis of Montana’s NCAA game. Hopefully, we can count on the home office to keep us here at GrizBasketball.com updated on the remainder of the NCAA tournament.
The Montana Grizzlies experienced The Pit and the pendulum Thursday afternoon. Like a macabre tale from the pen of Edgar Allen Poe, it may haunt them awhile.
The …

No. 14 Wisconsin 73, Montana 49
Star of the game: Forward Ryan Evans. The 6-foot-6 senior scored nine straight points early in the first half to get the Badgers into a rhythm. He finished with 18 points, making 6 of 8 shots from the field.
“It was big, obviously,” Montana coach Wayne Tinkle said of Evans’ start. “We knew we thought that was a key matchup for us. He’s too good to …