Busy week without games

The Glacier and Flathead boys basketball teams have played a combined one game in the last 12 days.

Yet, this week has been one of the busiest of the season.

That’s mostly true for all of the Kalispell teams this week as schools end the first semester and conduct final exams.

Because both boys teams also travel to Missoula today for conference games, the schedule for finals has been shortened slightly more, with both teams having to reschedule finals for seventh period.

“We leave at 12:30 (p.m.), so our guys miss seventh period,” Braves coach Ross Gustafson said.

“They all had to somehow squeeze in that final sometime today or tomorrow morning. Today they had a chance after school.”

Flathead, which has had the last 12 days off after a weekend sweep in Helena to start the conference season, has in a way lucked into the time off. Already hampered by injuries entering the stretch, the Braves caught a bug in the locker room last week. They used the time off to get healthy and get ready for finals, while still trying to stay at the top of the conference.

“We had several guys that were sick,” Gustafson said.

“We’re coming off two wins. When you’re winning you want to keep playing, but it ended up being a good week with the timing. We had a chance to not miss any games (with sickness or injuries).”

Glacier is off to its best start since 2013, starting the season 9-1 with wins over many of the top teams in the state.

The Wolfpack didn’t have quite as long a layoff, playing at Columbia Falls last Thursday, but comes off the prolonged down time to face its toughest road challenge of the last half of the season.

Glacier travels to Missoula Hellgate (1-1 Western AA, 7-3 overall) tonight, a team that has given it fits over the years and that currently holds the best record in the Western AA conference outside of Kalispell.

“When you play Hellgate you know they’re never going to beat themselves,” Glacier coach Mark Harkins said. “They’re a difficult matchup for us. It’s going to be a lot of fun. We haven’t played really well at Hellgate for a few years. Going down there is always a tough road trip. I’m looking forward to see how these guys respond to it.”

While not as tough a matchup, Flathead’s trip to Big Sky (0-2, 1-8) is one the Braves (2-0, 6-4) need to pick up to maintain a solid chance of picking up a top seed in the West.

“We’ve got to bring a good attitude,” Gustafson said.

“We started off great in conference. If we want to keep that rolling we have to keep coming every day with energy and have a great week of practice.”

The last 10 games of the season, all in conference, are the most important for a pair of teams that are looking to return to the state tournament.

If Flathead and Glacier used their down time wisely and can continue their play from before the long break, there should be plenty of space in Great Falls this year.