Column: Elliott making most of days at MSU-Billings
The year 2020 has been one for the books, from a 60-game Major League season to basketball in a bubble.
Now on the horizon: The fourth-year sophomore, which is what Flathead High graduate Sam Elliott is looking at next season. If there is a season. There won’t be one this winter for MSU-Billings, which is where Elliott landed as a 6-foot-7 men’s basketball player in 2018. The Yellowjackets bagged their current men’s and women’s season last Friday.
“We had a bit of a suspicion it might not happen,” Elliott said Wednesday. “We were holding out hope that the season might happen in some form.”
Instead Elliott will cool his heels and try to keep his grade-point average at 4.0 while studying business finance. He’s still a college athlete — still spending time in the weight room and gym — but he’s played a total of 14 college games and holding.
“I had a lot of good opportunities early in the (2019-20) season,” Elliott, who took a redshirt his first year at MSUB, noted. “The guy ahead of me was ineligible the first semester and that was a good experience for me. The best way to grow as a college player is to get those opportunities. It really helped my game, I think.”
Elliott showed decent 3-point range and averaged 10.4 minutes, 2.7 points and 2.1 rebounds. If that is the extent of his college career (he is looking forward to 2021-22) he still feels fortunate.
He was mostly getting junior college offers before MSU-Billings changed coaches and former Bobcats’ coach Mick Durham returned to Montana after seven seasons at Alaska-Fairbanks.
“He had a late start on recruiting, too, which helped me,” Elliott said. “I was a late commit.”
In fact it was mid-May in 2018 when Elliott signed. He headed to “Harvard on the Hill,” as some of us old Billings Gazette staffers called it, and — perhaps looking for the full college experience — walked onto the ‘Jackets baseball team for fall ball in 2018.
“I actually gave it a shot for a couple of weeks,” he said. “I pretty quickly realized there was a little too much on my plate. Going from practice to practice to homework every day.”
Now it’s basketball only, but without the games.
“We’re still doing workouts,” he said. “Lifting, and light practices until the end of the semester. Then we get the whole (Christmas) break this year. It’ll be nice to get home and have free time, at least.”
Two of his five classes this semester were in-person learning. Such is the life of the modern, pandemic-challenged collegian. In 18 months he could be planning out a non-traditional senior year. He also could be a young professional.
“I’m on track to graduate that next spring (2022),” Elliott noted. “It depends on if we can get back to playing a normal season next year — that will decide whether I maybe tack on another major and play the next year, or if I just move on and get going with my career.”
Elliott averaged 13 points a game as a senior at Flathead, and credits some AAU tournaments and Flathead High assistant principal Mike Lincoln with getting his foot in the door with Durham and MSU-Billings. He has since played 14 games. It’s not many, but he seems to be making the most of them.
Fritz Neighbor can be reached at 758-4463 or at fneighbor@dailyinterlake.com.