Wildcats play host to Montana Tech today

OGDEN — Weber State will have every excuse for taking it easy tonight when the Wildcats face off against Montana Tech.

The game comes a day before Thanksgiving. The Wildcats just played in an emotional, come-from-behind victory at Boise State. And as soon as the tryptophan-induced coma has faded, WSU hosts Utah.

Oh, and Montana Tech is an average NAIA team — meaning the Orediggers are not a good NAIA program.

All of which makes WSU Joe Cravens' task of getting his 2-0 team focused a challenging one. To help the Wildcats, all Cravens needs to do is let his team watch some game film of the season-opener against Montana-Western.

"I'm just concerned with what I feel is an unacceptable effort on the defensive end," WSU coach Joe Cravens told the media after that game last week. "That's the easy part of the game."

The Wildcats seemed to have fixed things at Boise State where WSU held the Broncos to just 38.2 percent shooting. Weber, on the other hand, had a nice night with 47.2 percent shooting and forced 18 turnovers.

Still, Cravens had reason to be upset as his team was outrebounded 36-32 while hitting only 5-of-15 3-point attempts.

The Orediggers come to Ogden having opened the season with several losses, including a blowout loss to fellow Big Sky school Idaho State. Coric Riggs and David Patten are leading the charge for the Wildcats. Riggs score 12 points at BSU, but also grabbed 13 rebounds. Patten scored 21 points and creates all sorts of matchup problems with his 6-foot-9 body and deft outside shooting that saw him connect on 9-of-14 shots at Boise.

Nick Covington struggled with his shot, but managed to rack up seven assists for Weber State to keep things moving along nicely.

The Wildcats are using a zone defense early this season as they seek to exploit the normal offensive problems teams typically face when the season begins.

"Zones are always more effective this time of the year," Cravens said after beating Boise State. "I used to think people who played zone this early in the season cheat. We kind of cheated them."

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