sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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Welcome to National Cookie Exchange Day!
With one of the most beloved holidays of the year just a few days away, many folks are busy with last-minute holiday shopping, decorating, wrapping and putting the final touches on that elaborate or intimate feast. While Christmas is a joyful event, it can also be a stressful and hectic time for others. Whether you plan on celebrating the holidays with a few close friends or large family gathering, the holidays can be a lot of work! Today reminds us to slow down for a moment and enjoy the season with a few sweet treats to eat! Dec. 22 is National Cookie Exchange Day, an annual event created by the Queen of Holidays.
Whether you host a party in your own home or have one at the office, cookie exchanges/swaps/parties are loads of fun and pretty simple to put together. Save the date, invite your guests and whip up a batch or two of your favorite tried-and-true homemade cookie recipes or try that brand new recipe you’ve been eyeing and share/trade with your guests.
SU News
Montana State HC Brian Fish
Bobcats Finish Up Road Trip with Visit to Syracuse (billingsgazette.com; Staff)
The Montana State men’s basketball team wraps up the non-conference portion of its schedule Tuesday night with perhaps its toughest test — a trip to the Carrier Dome and a matchup with Syracuse.
The Bobcats (5-6) have lost their last two games, a 73-64 loss at North Dakota State last Wednesday and an 80-73 loss at Buffalo on Saturday. Combined, MSU made 38 percent of its shots in those games, including what coach Brian Fish said were 23 missed layups against Buffalo.
“We just have to finish (shots),” said Fish, Montana State’s second-year coach. “I think we missed nine straight shots in the middle of the second half, and seven of them were layups.
“I’m not making excuses, but a lot of that is experience and getting more physical. And that’s a good (Buffalo) team that played in the NCAA tournament last year.”
Syracuse, a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference, is 8-3 coming off a 67-46 victory over Cornell. The Orange won their first six games of the season but have since lost games to Wisconsin, and longtime rivals Georgetown and St. Johns.
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Marcus 'Doughnuts' Colbert
Bobcats Wrap Up Out of Conference Schedule with Game Against Syracuse (bozemandailychronicle.com; Gabriel)
The first thing that comes to mind about Syracuse for most basketball fans is the zone defense that head coach Jim Boeheim has employed for the entirety of his 40-year tenure at his alma mater.
The Orange almost never stray from the 2-3 look. Tonight, it’s Montana State’s turn to try solving the time-tested system.
“They have such a different style that it can bait you in,” Bobcats head coach Brian Fish said. “They’re going to lull you to sleep with that zone and then press you a little bit out of it and do some stuff, and if you accept it and fall into the trap, then you play their game.”
One of MSU’s biggest strengths this year has been its 3-point shooting — 39.1 percent, good for second in the Big Sky and 42nd in the nation. While the visitors average nearly 24 attempts from beyond the arc per game and may well exceed that against the Orange, Fish said he’s more concerned about when the attempts come rather than the total number.
“The thing is, you can get it in the first six seconds of the shot clock, but if you can move the ball around you can get the same shot with 10 seconds on the shot clock,” Fish said. “I wouldn’t be shocked if we take 30 because that’s not too far above our average, but if it’s 30 in the front part of the shot clock, we’re going to be in trouble.”
MSU has the luxury of being able to play rotations where four or five shooters are all capable of attacking from the outside, but it will also need to find some room inside. When the Bobcats were stagnant on offense against Utah Valley’s zone last month, Fish used freshman guard Tyler Hall moving from side to side on the interior — a spot traditionally filled by a forward — in order to generate a pair of open looks from 10 to 12 feet. That forced attention inside and helped generate better looks from the perimeter.
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Other
SpaceX Successfully Launches, Lands Rocket Booster, Deploys 11 Satelites (PS; AP)
SpaceX sent a Falcon rocket soaring toward orbit Monday night with 11 small satellites, its first mission since an accident last summer. Then in an even more astounding feat, it landed the 15-story leftover booster back on Earth safely.
It was the first time an unmanned rocket returned to land vertically at Cape Canaveral, Florida, and represented a tremendous success for SpaceX. The company led by billionaire Elon Musk is striving for reusability to drive launch costs down and open up space to more people.
"Welcome back, baby!" Musk tweeted after touchdown.
"It's a revolutionary moment," Musk later told reporters. "No one has ever brought a booster, an orbital-class booster, back intact."
What's significant is that this was a useful mission, Musk noted, not merely a practice flight. "We achieved recovery of the rocket in a mission that actually deployed 11 satellites," he said.
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