Tyler Hall elevated for a 3-point jump shot in front of the Montana State bench and his teammates rose to their feet collectively. The entirety of the 2,275 at Brick Breeden Fieldhouse let out a collective sigh as Hall’s shot bricked off the front of the rim.
Hall drilled seven consecutive 3-pointers before the miss, so the sense of surprise from observers was understandable. The miss careened into the paint and into Marcus Colbert’s hands. Hall ran the baseline and received a pocket pass from Montana State’s point guard. He swished a 3-pointer in rhythm in front of the crowd, bringing them to their feet again.
On the other side of the court, Northern Arizona head coach Jack Murphy screamed for a timeout. Murphy lit into his fresh-faced freshmen-laden team while Montana State’s freshman sensation continued to dominate his peer competition. Murphy pleaded with his team to close out on MSU’s shooters, particularly Hall, but the Lumberjacks could never gain traction at the Brick on Thursday night.
Montana State drilled a school and Big Sky Conference-record 25 shots from beyond the 3-point line and posted its largest margin of victory in a league game in 19 years with Thursday’s 101-58 rout of Northern Arizona. Montana State converted six of its 14 offensive rebounds into 3-pointers while scoring nearly all of its 24 second-chance points from beyond the arc.
On three separate occasions, a Big Sky team has hit 20 3-pointers in a game, twice by NAU and once, this season, by Eastern Washington. MSU moves to 6-6 in Big Sky Conference play, 11-13 overall with the win. The Lumberjacks are now 2-10 in league, 4-19 overall.
“They were good shots. They were penetrate and kicks. They were shots we practice, they just happened to go in tonight,” Montana State head coach Brian Fish said.
“Sometimes your guys move the ball and sometimes they don’t. Usually as a young team like we are, that’s not always something they do. But tonight, it was just popping. It was really effective and allowed us to make a lot of shots.”
Playing against an NAU squad that starts four true freshmen, Hall showed an assassin’s eye from the outset of the contest. MSU’s 6-foot-5 star shooting guard drilled his first eight shots, including his first seven 3-pointers as he scored 23 of his 29 points before halftime. Hall’s back-to-back 3-pointers to open the second half pushed MSU’s lead to 64-16. Hall hit 10-of-14 shots overall. He and Colbert took a seat with nearly 10 minutes to play.
“Tyler is bouncing back a little bit from his couple games slump where people really skewed defenses toward him,” Fish said. “Outside of maybe one or two where he got it late in the shot clock, I thought probably 12 of his 14 shots were in rhythm shots and his teammates found him. I guess you can say he broke the freshman scoring record again tonight.”
Hall scored eight points in an 83-68 loss at Portland State a week ago, the second time all season he’s been held in single digits. He bounced back with 25 points in a win over Sacramento State, pushing him to 410 points this season, breaking Larry Chanay’s mark that has stood since 1960.
Hall set the tone but most of the Bobcat roster contributed. Montana State’s bench scored 52 points behind career nights from true freshman Sam Neumann and junior point guard Nahjee Matlock. Matlock entered the game averaging 2.7 points and 9.2 minutes per game. He was 4-of-16 from beyond the 3-point line entering the contest. Thursday, Matlock drilled three straight first-half 3-pointers in scoring a career-high 13 points. He also dished out 10 assists as MSU totaled 24 dimes on 35 made field goals.
Matlock hit 3-pointers on back-to-back possessions to spark runs of 25-0 and 28-2 for the Bobcats. Matlock’s two triples followed the first of Sarp Gobeloglu’s three 3s and were part of a stretch in which MSU hit seven 3-pointers in 10 possessions.
During the stretch, Matlock consistently ripped past NAU point guard Kris Yanku, a first-team All-Big Sky selection as a sophomore last season. Matlock’s penetration led to open look after open look as MSU drilled 15-of-23 3-pointers before halftime.
“We are going to shoot the 3,” Fish said. “We are a program that is going to shoot the basketball. I think that’s how you play at our level. If we could get a dominant center inside, trust me, I can figure out how to throw it in there. I’ve seen enough teams do it to us. I know what the hell to do.”
Holm hit two of his four 3-pointers during the stretch as he shook off a shooting slump to score 12 points in 24 minutes. Gobeloglu nailed 3-of-8 from beyond the arc, including a triple with 15:08 to play to break Montana State’s single-game school record. Last season, MSU made 18 shots from beyond the arc in a win over Texas Arlington. The Bobcats hit 10-of-20 from deep in the second half to break the school record by 7. The NCAA record for 3-pointers in a single game is 28, set by Troy against George Mason in 1994.
Neumann’s 3-pointer with 14:21 to play pushed MSU’s lead to 75-26, the Bobcats’ largest. Neumann, Hall’s true freshman roommate, converted all five 3-pointers for a career-high 15 points in 15 minutes.
“Tyler started it all off and once he hit one and everyone hit one, everyone turned into a shooter,” Neumann said. “It was hard for them to guard every single person. We were making the extra pass and getting guys open. Just knocking down those shots opened up shots for everyone else in the long run.”
Although the Bobcats were on fire for the duration of the evening, Fish continued to coach in his customarily vocal, intense fashion. Shy Blake, Montana State’s starting center, went down with a knee injury five minutes into the game. Fish’s other starters — Colbert, Hall, Quinton Everett, Zach Green — played no more than 24 minutes each.
“Why not coach Nahjee, Tyson (Kanseyo), Sarp, Danny (Robison) and Steph the same way I’m coaching the other five? That’s not fair to them,” Fish said. “I’m not going to change for whoever is in the game. If I don’t coach them the same way, I am doing them a disservice.
“We got a lot of guys playing time and a lot of guys saw the insides of their lungs out their mouth today because they hadn’t played that many minutes. But it was nice to see.”
Neumann’s third 3-pointer pushed the lead to 86-43 and his fourth solidified the lead to 91-48. His fifth 3-pointer gave MSU a 98-53 runaway. Holm’s bank 3-pointer from the corner as the shot clock expired with 14 seconds to play was MSU’s 25th and final 3-ball and pushed MSU past the century for the first time this season.
“We have this great quote that (MSU radio commentator) Jay Sanderson gave us and that’s win every pitch,” said Matlock, a lightning fast transfer from Las Vegas by way of Tohono O’odham Community College (Sells, AZ). “We didn’t want to look at the scoreboard or relax because we were smothering them. We have something to prove to turn this program around and prove we are someone to look out for.”
Northern Arizona converted just 17 percent (4-of-23) of its first half field goals in falling behind by nearly 40 at the break. The Lumberjacks rallied to make 58 percent of their second half field goals in losing the second stanza 45-40. NAU freshman Torry Johnson buried all three of his second-half 3-point attempts and 10-of-12 free throws overall to finish with 21 points. Lumberjacks’ point guard Kris Yanku converted four second-half old-fashioned 3-point plays and finished with 21 points as well.
Down the stretch, Fish did his best to make his team run half-court sets and wind down the clock. Last season, Fish was in a rebuilding year like NAU is now. The Bobcats suffered lopsided losses, albeit their worst were at the hands of Kentucky and Syracuse. Still, Fish expressed compassion for his opponent while enjoying the aftermath of his team’s crazed shooting spree.
“Jack Murphy is a friend of mine and I’ve been on the other side of that,” Fish said. “Through my head, I’m thinking I have guys out there I have to coach but I have a friend over here. We hit a couple of tough 3s that were late in the shot clock. There’s no joy in winning a game like that against a friend but at the same time, my paycheck comes from Montana State and I have to have my five guys going. I know Jack will take those guys and build it.”
