BOZEMAN — Jalen Canty scored easily on a pair of hook shots from the block on UC Santa Barbara’s first two possessions here on Saturday afternoon. Montana State head coach Brian Fish countered by moving his team into a 2-3 zone.
Max Heidegger, Santa Barbara’s sweet shooting sophomore guard, ripped the zone apart, scoring 10 points, including a eight-point burst that turned MSU’s last lead, 9-8, into a seven-point UCSB lead just seven minutes into the game.
Fish would try an array of defenses — a box-and-1 on Heidegger, who scored 14 of his 19 before halftime, a match-up zone, a variety of traps and back to man-to-man — but nothing worked. If it wasn’t Heidegger shredding the zone with his shooting, it was Gabe Vincent getting to the rim at will. If it wasn’t Vincent getting to the rack, it was Leland King II doing whatever he wanted.
The Gauchos had an answer for whatever the Bobcats went to defensively and executed with effiecency all afternoon. King scored 25 points, Vincent scored 20, Heidegger scored 19 and Canty chipped in with 15 as UCSB shot 57 percent en rout to a 91-69 victory in front of 2,271.
“We were trying to throw something different at them, trying to get stops but our defense today was awful,” Montana State junior forward Sam Neumann said after finishing with no points and one rebound in 11 minutes of action. “I don’t know how else to put it. Me personally, I didn’t do well on defense. The coaches were trying to find something that worked for us but we couldn’t do it.”
Montana State junior Sam Neumann against UC Santa Barbara
The win boosts UC Santa Barbara to 8-2 this season, including 2-0 against the Big Sky Conference. The Gauchos defeated Montana 80-73 in Santa Barbara last month. The loss is Montana State’s second straight and drops the Bobcats to 6-5 overall.
“They got established on the first two plays, scored inside, got it going from the get go right there and then the guard made a couple of shots to spring them out to a 16-9 lead,” Fish said. “We cut it to four and we took four bad possession shots, ran a play wrong so I got to get the guys to understand.
“But at the end of the day, the defense wasn’t good. They pounded us inside or we couldn’t guard the ball one on one. We have to get better at that.”
The Gauchos hit 17-of-32 shots in the first half, including 6-of-11 from beyond the arc in building a 40-31 lead. The visitors scorched the nets in the second half, hitting 20 of their 33 field goal attempts (60.6 percent) to finish at 56.9 percent shooting.
“It’s everything,” Fish said on his team’s biggest defensive deficiency. “We aren’t rebounding on free throws, we aren’t guarding one-on-one, we aren’t guarding inside. They exposed that with us today. We knew what their purpose would be, we just didn’t get it done.”
King, a graduate transfer from Inglewood who has made stops at Brown and Nevada in his career, scored from inside and out. His scored 17 of his 25 after halftime, scoring in the post against smaller players like Neumann and Zach Green or bringing larger defenders like MSU 6-foot-6 junior Keljin Blevins out to the perimeter. King hit 10-of-17, including four of his five 3-point tries. He also grabbed 10 rebounds. He came into the game averaging 18.6 points and 10 rebounds per game.
Montana State head coach Brian Fish
“We scouted him as a good player and we did a good job of him in the first half, stayed between him and the rim, forced him to shoot tough shots,” Blevins said. “In the second half, we just didn’t guard as well as we wanted to. We gave up a lot of easy ones to him. He got going in the second half with his jump shot and we never messed up his rhythm. That’s what happens.”
Montana State largely negated Heidegger in the second half but King’s ability to score on the block and stretch the defense in turn opened up lanes for Vincent to get to the basket. Vincent’s jumper with 3:44 left pushed the lead to 20. Canty’s two free throws with three minutes remaining gave UCSB its biggest lead, 87-64.
“They established their inside game and then it breaks everything else down,” Fish said. “It’s like football establishing a run to get open the pass. They shot 57 percent in the game and they have a situation there where they are going to get whatever they want to do.”
Less than a week after posting the first scoreless game of his Bobcat career, MSU star junior guard Tyler Hall hit his first three shots to keep the margin close early. Hall, one of the nation’s leading scorers and top 3-point shooters the last two seasons, played just 11 points in a lopsided loss at Central Michigan on Tuesday. He played 31 minutes on Saturday and scored a team-high 19 points. But he also missed out on at least four assists that either hit teammates in the hands and resulted in turnovers or resulted in missed shots.
Montana State senior Konner Frey with a dunk against UCSB
Outside of Hall, who hit three of MSU’s seven 3-pointers and finished 7-of-12 from the floor overall, Montana State did not find any offensive flow. In the extended fast break, the ball stuck instead of moving. In the half court, many times the Bobcats looked out of sync and Fish consistently reprimanded his players for not running the plays correctly or executing in crisp fashion.
“It’s something we talked about last game too: we just weren’t moving the ball,” Blevins said. “That’s a point of emphasis right now. Everybody wants to be a scorer instead of sharing the ball and that’s why we had another game where we had more turnovers than assists. We have to do a better job of sharing the ball and that starts with all of us.”
The Bobcats shot 35.7 percent after halftime, including 4-of-13 from deep. MSU finished at 42.6 percent from the floor, including 7-of-22 from deep. Senior Joe Mvuezolo scored 12 points in 25 minutes off the bench. Sophomore point guard Harald Frey added 10 points for Montana State. MSU finished with 10 assists and 12 turnovers.
MSU now has a nine-day break for finals week before taking on Denver her on December 18.
“We are looking forward to it more so for the practice,” Neumann said. “We haven’t been able to have hard practices because we have been traveling or at games so frequently. It will be nice to get on the court and go hard and battle with each other and get better.”
Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
