Here’s the info you need to participate, online or in person:

Director of basketball operations Kadin Kirk is also moving on with plans to pursue a master’s degree program at Arizona State. Kirk was a video coordinator for one season at WSU before becoming the director of basketball ops for the 2012-13 season.

We’ll have more info on the moves later.

MISSOULA, Mont. — This is what it always comes down to in the Big Sky Conference: One game for all the glory.

The regular season determined the venue, but this is the one Weber State and Montana fans have had circled on their calendars for months, with the winner moving on to the NCAA Tournament.

The Wildcats and Grizzlies are meeting in the Big Sky Tournament championship game for the third time in four years. Tipoff is at 7 p.m. at Dahlberg Arena in a game that will be nationally televised on ESPNU.

The ’Cats and Griz battled all season for the right to host the tournament, but Montana withstood late injuries to Ward and Cherry to finish with a 19-1 record, one game ahead of WSU’s 18-2 in the Big Sky’s expanded schedule.

Four first-team all-league players, a second team player and two honorable mentions will face off on the court tonight, and that doesn’t include Montana’s leading scorer, senior forward Mathias Ward, who earned second team honors but is done for the season after having surgery on his broken foot.

Junior forward Kareem Jamar, the Big Sky player of the year, and senior point guard Will Cherry, the defensive player of the year, lead the attack for Montana. Weber State’s two first-teamers, senior point guard Scott Bamforth and junior forward Davion Berry, and second-team junior center Kyle Tresnak, will be key to the game, but both teams have depth with players who can step up and be a difference maker.

Freshman forward Joel Bolomboy played that part in Friday’s semifinal game, coming off the bench to fill the stat sheet with 13 points, eight rebounds and five blocked shots as No. 2 seed Weber State overcame a 12-point second-half deficit against No. 3 North Dakota in the semifinals.

The Grizzlies held off fifth seeded Northern Colorado on Friday.

Both sides can point to reasons for confidence as they battle for Big Sky supremacy and an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament:

= The Wildcats enter the game with a 13-game winning streak, third longest in the country.

= Weber State only lost by two points to a healthy Montana team at Dahlberg Arena in January and blasted the Griz 87-63 in Ogden to snap their league-record 25-game Big Sky winning streak (27 including conference tourney games). The ’Cats are due for a breakthrough after being knocked out of the Big Sky Tournament in three straight years.

= WSU is one of the top shooting teams in the nation in both field goal percentage and 3-point percentage and is significantly better defensively than it was a year ago after retooling its defensive philosophy, partly in response to its losses to Montana in the regular season finale and in the championship game.

= Weber State has 26 wins for the fourth time in school history and could tie the school record with a win tonight.

= Weber State is healthy, while Ward is out for good for Montana and Cherry, who broke his foot in the preseason, missed games late in the year after fearing he had re-broken it and may not be 100 percent.

Reasons for Montana momentum:

= The Grizzlies haven’t lost a game at Dahlberg Arena to a Big Sky team in forever. They’ve won 30 consecutive league games there.

= Montana has had Weber State’s number in tournament games. The Griz rallied from a 20-point halftime deficit to the title game in Ogden in 2010, beat WSU in the semifinals in 2011 and in the finals again in 2012. They’ve won five straight overall; WSU hasn’t beaten Montana in a tourney game since 1995.

= Weber State will be playing its third game in three nights, while Montana had a bye in the tourney first round because it won the league.

========

Check out Montana beat writer Bob Meseroll’s championship primer for The Missoulian here, and his postgame story from the Griz’s win over Northern Colorado here and postgame blog.

Meet Jalen Moore.

Same arena, same shot, same result.

Tempers flared after an emotional, physical game Saturday as the teams went through the postgame handshake line following the Grizzlies’ 76-74 win over the Wildcats. A verbal altercation ignited an incident of pushing and shoving that had security and coaches from both sides rushing to clear the court.

Weber State coach Randy Rahe said he didn’t know what happened, but he was going to deal with it.

“My assistants, we’re going to try to find out. I don’t know what happened, I don’t like it, I don’t know whose fault it was,” Rahe said. “I’ll just tell you this, if it was our fault, there’s going to be hell to pay because that’s not how we do things. It was an emotional game. Kids on both teams fought really hard and we’ve got some kids that know each other on both teams. Who knows what really happened. I’m sure it was probably from both ends would be my guess, talking a little bit.”

Montana coach Wayne Tinkle told Bob Meseroll of The Missoulian that he wasn’t sure who the instigator was either.

“I was halfway up the tunnel,” Tinkle said. “Two competitive teams, a big game and apparently there was a little bit of talk going on. I know I expect better from our guys and I know Randy expects better. It was an emotional game and we have to make sure we don’t allow any of that nonsense. I’m glad our guys held their composure and didn’t do anything silly.”

Weber State junior center Kyle Tresnak said he was walking back from the line when the incident occurred, but went back. “I was just trying to get people out,” he said.

Senior shooting guard Scott Bamforth said he didn’t know what started it.

“It was an intense basketball game, so people are going to have their nerves up and be ready,” he said. “We’re mad we lost, they’re happy they won. I don’t know what happened exactly.”

A partial video of the incident can be seen at blogs.standard.net/wsu-sports-blog.

Last chance

Two years ago, the Wildcats stunned a previously unbeaten Big Sky leader (Northern Colorado) with a halfcourt shot by Bamforth, who caught the ball near the midcourt line, dribbled across and launched a 40-footer in at the buzzer.

Weber State had something similar in mind for Davion Berry’s last-second try at unbeaten league-leader Montana, but it didn’t work out.

WSU didn’t have a timeout to set up a play to go the length of the court after forcing a Montana turnover with just over three seconds left, but Rahe said they would drawn up something similar to the play that developed.

“We try to get Dev Berry the ball as close to halfcourt as possible, have him try to take two or three hard dribbles and try to get up a clean 3-point shot,” Rahe said. “He got one up, it was a little deeper than we would like but that’s basically the same kind of thing we’d have run if we had a timeout.”

FT woes

Weber State had its own free throw struggles earlier in the season, but in both games last week, with the Wildcats trying to scrap back in two road games and needing to foul to do it, they ran into a different kind of free throw problem: Specifically, Montana State and Montana refused to offer Weber State any charity from the charity stripe.

The Bobcats hit 24 of 29 (82.8 percent) from the line, including their final 14, while the Griz were even better, going 30 of 32 (90.9 percent).

Roy Burton covers Weber State sports for the Standard-Examiner. Follow @RoyBurton on Twitter, read more about the Wildcats at blogs.standard.net/wsu-sports-blog or reach him at rburton@standard.net.

Weber State coach Randy Rahe talks about win over Eastern Washington, Joel Bolomboy’s potential, Jordan Richardson’s keys to success at point guard and Byron Fulton’s return from knee injury.

Eastern Washington recap: http://www.standard.net/stories/2012/12/20/richardson-leads-wildcats-rout-big-sky-opener

Portland State preview: http://www.standard.net/stories/2012/12/21/wildcats-win-balance

We need a blueprint that leaves some middle ground.

It’s no moral failing for Utah State football coach Gary Andersen to take a reportedly $3 million a year job at Wisconsin, a Big Ten school with a national profile — everyone wants to play in the big leagues — it’s just that many were so quick to lavish praise on his character for staying in Logan after interest was expressed by other schools.

Both reactions to Andersen’s choices are overreactions.

Andersen was lionized for his loyalty, just days ago, but maybe he felt neither Cal nor Colorado was a good fit for his personality or system. Maybe he was a finalist but was never made an official offer. Whatever the case, he didn’t have either job and he said so, announcing that he was staying at USU.

It’s the way he said it that is being thrown back in his face now, less than three weeks later:

“I plan to remain the head football coach at Utah State University,” Andersen said in a statement released by the school Nov. 30. “I love Cache Valley, this university and these young men, and I am humbled and excited to continue to be the coach here. The leadership of President (Stan) Albrecht and Mr. Barnes, as well as the support from the fans and community, are big reasons why this is the right place for myself and my family at this time.”

Andersen in the Idaho Statesman prior to USU’s bowl victory over Toledo:

“Once an Aggie, always an Aggie. And I’ve learned that. I walked in here and I wasn’t an Aggie. To everyone, I was a Ute,” Andersen said. “For me, once an Aggie, always an Aggie is something I take a lot of pride in.”

And this:

“The kids I have in the program, it just was not time. I look them in the eye and I need to be where I’m at.”

If you take his statements at his word, Andersen meant it all a short time ago. But now that he needs to be somewhere else, those words are coming back to haunt him.

There is a long tradition of college coaches swearing up and down they’re not going anywhere, only to swear their allegiance to a new fanbase soon after. Somebody could put together a highlight reel of coaches making promises.

Urban Meyer put his arm around people at Utah and told them he was staying put, then left for Florida. Nick Saban was even more specific — “I’m not going to be the Alabama coach” — before becoming the Alabama coach.

Both Meyer and Saban were rewarded with national championships; Andersen can only hope for the same at Wisconsin.

But what if Utah State turns around and hires a rising young football coach who had received interest from other schools and just last week, with no guile, was telling recruits he was happy where he was at? Aggies fans will be thrilled to have him.

It’s time to stop making coaches into heroes if they stay or villains if they don’t. It’s not about whether they stay or go that reveals their character, it’s whether they handle the process with integrity.

Coaches, like everyone else, have the right and the freedom to choose to move on to a different job — for money, competition, family reasons, a change of scenery or they just think they look better in another color, whatever.

When coaches who are seen as potential candidates for another job are asked, they need a way to say, “I like it here. They’ve treated me well and we’ve had success. But I owe it to myself and my family to consider each opportunity that comes along,” without being vilified if they don’t make lavish promises to stay for all eternity.

Utah State basketball coach Stew Morrill is seen as the ultimate symbol of loyalty in Logan, but USU is his third head coaching job after Montana and Colorado State. Morrill has had opportunities to talk to bigger schools, but none, yet, have been the right fit.

Morrill’s longevity at Utah State is admirable and he has earned the right to stay there as long as he wants, to finish his career there if he desires. But if someday he chooses to take a job in a power conference, would it be a sign of weak character?

Of course not. Just like it wasn’t when he left Montana for Colorado State and CSU for USU. Sometimes the right opportunity comes along. All you can ask is that he handles the situation with integrity.

Even former Weber State football coach John L. Smith, who left the Wildcats in a difficult situation by taking the interim job at Arkansas just months after being hired, would have been much better off if, instead of ducking reporters in Ogden, he had faced them to tell Wildcats fans that an opportunity he had been working toward his entire professional life had become available through an unforeseeable turn of events and that he was sorry for the terrible timing.

Weber State fans still wouldn’t have been happy, but they might have been more understanding.

BYU football coach Bronco Mendenhall seems to have found a blueprint that works for him in this regard. He refused a longer-term contract and has been open about not expecting to be in Provo for 30-plus like LaVell Edwards was. He’s also talked about the types of jobs that might interest him for more reasons than just football, places like Stanford and Air Force.

When Mendenhall was rumored to be connected to the Colorado job, he said he hadn’t been contacted; when the Buffaloes later called him, he announced he’d spoken with them but it hadn’t gone farther and said he was happy at BYU for now.

Here’s another blueprint: Just last week, I talked with former Weber State offensive coordinator Matt Hammer, who took a head coaching job at Weber High and told me it was to spend more time with his family.

Hammer is only 30 and had been an FCS offensive coordinator for four years — if not at Weber State, he could have found other opportunities to continue to coach college football, but he chose a different path.

When I asked him if he’d ever come back to college coaching, Hammer said he didn’t see it happening for the next dozen years, but then this: “I’ll never say never. Something could happen where you can’t or you shouldn’t turn something down.”

Coaches aren’t selling out every time they look at another opportunity, nor are they poster children for character, honor and loyalty when those opportunities don’t pan out for the moment — they’re just people like us with jobs.

I love my job, but if someone makes a $3 million phone call to me, I’m answering it.

Still waiting.