BILLINGS — Blue-collar is the best way to describe the Glendive boys basketball team.
“On the weekends our guys are out hunting varmints and moving cows, stuff like that. It's just kind of funny, because we're a lot different than a lot of these teams around the Billings area," Glendive head coach Wade Murphy said.
"We've got a family farm, family ranch. We're out there always working cattle. It's pretty hard work. Throwing hay bales around," Glendive senior Levi Eaton said.
Headlined by the 6-foot-6 Eaton and his 6-4 brother Cy, the Red Devils earned a trip to the Class A boys state tournament after a third-place finish at the Eastern A divisional tournament.
Those towers in the middle, along with the timely scoring of Carter Amsler, Ethan Rivas and Shann McPherson, have given teams fits all year.
“Bobby Anderson at Lockwood told me we play 1950s basketball," Murphy said. "I'm not an idiot. I know what we have. We have kids that can make shots, but we make shots because we have big kids, too. It's really hard sometimes for our guys to turn down 3s to know that we might get a better one in the possession."
“It makes it hard for teams to man us," Eaton said. "If they man us they've got to help a lot. If they zone us it opens up the game for the guards. It's hard to guard."
The Glendive boys are making their fourth consecutive appearance at the State A tournament and have all the makings of leaving First Interstate Arena with more hardware for the case.
“We have little basketball camps where kids come in. We really enjoy doing that, just showing them what we're about and how fun it is to play basketball," Eaton said.
“They see — more importantly — not just a good work ethic, but how well we share the ball with each other, how we care about each other. Those are the intangibles that are important," Murphy said. "You can have all the talent in the world, but if kids don't like playing together and they don't genuinely care for each other and love each other, it's hard to win games. Our guys, they genuinely like to see their teammates do well. It's refreshing."
The Red Devils open the state tournament against the Western A’s No. 2 seed on Thursday, March 13 at 6:30 p.m.
