Anderson ready to do whatever his team needs

By Glenn Junkert
For GoGriz.com

Montana freshman Mack Anderson has played a wide variety of sports, and so he laughed with understanding when he heard that his basketball coach at Montana, Travis DeCuire, had compared learning how to play Division-I basketball to a sudden lesson in learning how to swim.

"It's like teaching a kid how to swim," DeCuire said in an early-December radio interview. "Throw him in the water and see what happens."

"I feel that's a really good analogy," said Anderson, who in six brief months has transitioned from the dominant high school center in Montana prep basketball to… well, an inexperienced rookie battling older, more physical and game-toughened giants.

"It's definitely hard to just suddenly get onto the court," the freshman continued. "The speed of the college game is so much faster, including that players are bigger and stronger. The speed and physicality are the biggest shifts for me."

When practices for Anderson's first season as a Griz started in September, the highly recruited, 6-9 post/power forward from Bozeman thought he might redshirt his first year. Initially, he and 6-10 frosh teammate Ben Carter were anticipating a year learning Montana's challenging system without playing, much like Griz post teammate Kelby Kramer had done last season.

"I was ready, though," Anderson said, "because coaches were telling me to be ready. You never know what might happen, you know?"

And then it did happen.

Experienced senior veteran post Jamar Akoh suffered an injury that kept him off the court and out of game action for more than a month. Next in line was redshirt freshman Kramer, and 5-months-removed-from-high-school freshmen Anderson and Carter. Since then, all three have seen valuable minutes in several games.

Inexperienced? Yes. Nervous? Stop there.

Do not assume Anderson is even the slightest bit intimidated.

"I'm not nervous," said Anderson firmly. "I definitely am in a 'Hey, let's go' frame of mind."

After not playing two games, at home against Georgia State and Montana Tech, Anderson was thrown into the fire during a preseason tournament in the Bahamas. He was told the night before to be ready, and sure enough, 5 minutes into the game vs. Incarnate Word, Anderson checked in.

"Actually, I was excited," Anderson said about his first in-game action, a 93-66 thrashing of Incarnate Word. Anderson played an aggressive 13 minutes, scored seven points on 3-of-4 shooting, grabbed four rebounds and dished out one assist against the Cardinals.

"That was a really good game for me to get my first experience," he said, smiling. "Now, I've been just letting everything go and just getting out onto the floor and playing hard. That's also what the coaches have been telling me: 'Do your thing. Shoot it when you get it. Just play.'"

Chris Cobb echoed that sentiment.

The Montana associate head coach said, "Mack's playing in a basketball world right now where he's a little bit undersized from a weight standpoint, but when he starts putting weight on and gets stronger, then his game will grow.

"The sky's the limit for Mack… The ability is there, and a lot of the intangibles are there, and he's a real tough kid."

Right now, the biggest thing for Anderson is growing his confidence, Cobb continued.

"I think as time progresses and games go on, fans will see the confidence improve first, and then his overall play improve as well."

It won't be easy. Montana's defensive basketball schemes – especially for post players – are complex and take time to learn. Most freshmen bigs, when they were prep players, were rarely required to move out of the paint on defense, guard more than one opponent, or learn switches and hedges on offense and defense.

Simply put, DeCuire said, it takes learning.

"They're freshmen, so every game it's almost a 'first-time' situation for these guys. You've got your first Division-I game, your first road game, your first time playing a high-major, your first time on national TV… It's just that every time it's going to be something that shocks them and they've got to play through it."

Montana's coaching staff, however, is convinced that Anderson has the attitude and physical and mental skills to succeed.

"Once we saw him, we made sure to make our first contact, to develop the relationship," Cobb said of the staff's first interaction with Anderson, at an AAU tournament in Seattle. "We got to know Mack and his family, his parents who are great people. It was really easy to get to know him and his family, to know what they were looking for, and to know there would be a good fit at Montana."

Anderson said he's always played basketball, but his parents encouraged him to play a variety of sports, including soccer and swimming.

"I don't really know why, but I just liked basketball the best," Anderson said. "Bozeman High School basketball, of course, is a big influence on me. They have a pretty good reputation over the past few years, so that has obviously had an influence on me."

As a senior at Bozeman, Anderson (who was coached by Wes Holmquist) averaged a double-double in scoring (16.6 points per game) and rebounding (12.9 per game.), and was named to the All-Montana and USA Today All-USA Montana Boys Basketball first teams.

Anderson was also influenced by his AAU coach, Brad Huse, a Missoula native who played prep hoops at Big Sky High School, served as an assistant coach at Montana from 2004-06 under Larry Krystkowiak and even spent seven years (2006-14) as head coach at Montana State.

"Coach Huse taught me a lot about basketball," Anderson said.

When talking, Anderson frequently repeats the phrases 'hard work,' 'defensive attitude,' 'physically aggressive,' and 'doing what coaches ask,' to describe his basketball talents. But when encouraged to elaborate, he says quietly, "I'm pretty athletic for how tall I am, and I'm pretty long in build, so those factors help my game defensively. That and the fact that I can get up the floor pretty well, too, for my size, also helps my game against players my size."

But then he returns to the short phrases he often uses to describe his core goals: "That's what I work on every day. As a result, I try hard to work on other skills like shooting and post-up skills and footwork. Defensively, I focus on the positioning in the post. Here at Montana, defense is really different, so I'm trying to make the transition and get used to that aspect of the game as well."

Though Anderson has always loved hoops, it wasn't until late in his high school career that he started broadening his view of the game. It was during the summer going into his senior season that he realized he might have an opportunity to continue his playing career after high school.

"When that happened it boosted my confidence a lot, especially offensively, it helped a ton to have faith in myself and to have that confidence."

And that's when he started getting noticed by college recruiters.

"I had been considering all the schools that reached out to me and all the options I had. I'm really thankful that I had so many options," he said.

But…

"But I really decided right away that Montana was going to be high on the list… a great program, close to home and so, in September, a couple of weeks before the signing period, I committed."

Anderson knows his time on the court this year may be limited. But that won't stop him from using it as an opportunity to better himself moving forward.

"I want to get bigger and stronger daily and get some early experience playing at this level," he said. "I'm getting more comfortable on offense, but my main goal is to focus on doing the job on defense, mainly."

But, after reflection on those goals, Anderson pauses and says, "Even with all the challenges…. in the long run it's really my personal goal to help our team win in any way that I can. So, right now I'm just focusing on doing what the coaches ask me to do… getting better, bringing energy, keeping the ball out of the post on D and doing whatever they want me to do defensively or offensively to help the team."

No doubt, challenges lie ahead for Anderson. For Carter and Kramer, as well. DeCuire stressed that all three will get "thrown into the pool" in different games and in different situations. It'll be up to each player to decide "what happens."

"Until then, it's our job as coaches to schematically help him and get him into positions to compete on the floor," Cobb said about Anderson. "Mack can help right away by focusing on his defending and rebounding. There will be times this year where we will need a big body on the floor, and Mack can be that guy."

University of Montana Athletics

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Mack Anderson

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