GAME NOTES: The Montana State Wildcats put their 10-1 home record on the line this afternoon as they challenge the Sacramento State Hornets in Big Sky Conference play at Worthington Arena in Bozeman. The Bobcats won yet again at home on Thursday night when they dismissed Northern Arizona by a score of 70-67, snapping a brief two-game slide and pushing the squad to a respectable 6-5 in league play. As for the Hornets, this has become a season that they would much rather forget, having won a mere two of 12 Big Sky outings. Sacramento State was also in action on Valentine's Day and was subsequently crushed in a 90-57 decision versus Montana on the road. The setback was the third in a row and the eighth in nine tries for a program that has dropped every one of 12 true road games in 2007-08. Of Sacramento State's four wins this season, one of them came in the first meeting between these two squads in a 78-77 decision back on January 10th at home. As a result, the MSU advantage in the all-time series has been cut to 15-11.

Vinnie McGhee tallied a team-best 18 points and handed out four of the 10 assists recorded by Sacramento State earlier this week, but his efforts went for naught in the team's dismal performance against Montana on the road. The other four starters for the Hornets combined to shoot just 8-of-28 from the floor as the entire squad converted a collective 35.9 percent from the field. Worse yet, the Hornets made just 4-of-18 chances beyond the arc and 7-of-16 at the free-throw line. The last five games for Sacramento State have seen four different leading scorers, which shows just how inconsistent the program has been from the very start when it opened with a 94-63 setback to Kansas State and then triumphed over Simpson by 33 points. Loren Leath leads the team in scoring with his 13.7 ppg, followed by McGhee and his 11.8 ppg for a squad that is putting up only 63.8 ppg.

Carlos Taylor racked up a game-high 29 points on 10-of-17 shooting from the field and converted 5-of-6 beyond the arc as the Bobcats slipped by Northern Arizona earlier in the week. Taylor also led the program with seven rebounds, while Divaldo Mbunga tacked on 20 points for a team that converted 54 percent from the field and survived a mere 8-of-15 effort at the charity stripe on the night. Over the course of his 24 starts this season, Taylor has knocked down 43.3 percent of his attempts out on the perimeter, en route to a team-best 19.1 ppg which also has him among the top scorers in the Big Sky. Mbunga accounts for another 12.2 ppg and is tops on the glass with six rebounds per game, which is enough to help give the Bobcats a rebounding advantage of four per game over the competition.

Playing on the road has been tough enough for the Hornets this season, so trying to take out Montana State for the second time in 2007-08 just doesn't seem all that likely.