Montana State’s remarkable institutional momentum over the last 15 years first started on campus with the hiring of President Waded Cruzado before trickling into, then coinciding with, the booming Bozeman community.
Rather quickly, the upward ascension hit the football team. Under the direction of athletic director Leon Costello, everything from cross country and track to volleyball to women’s basketball saw a strong uptick.
Then in 2022, Montana State won pretty much everything. The success was so superb, the phrase “Year of the Bobcats” became commonplace around the state of Montana. And that was made possible by one of MSU’s favorite sons helping lead the men’s basketball team to heights unseen this century.
Danny Sprinkle, a Bobcat legend in his own right after a sweet-shooting career in the late 1990s, led the Bobcats on a four-year surge that also ignited his rise to the top of the college basketball world. He took MSU to consecutive NCAA Tournaments before leading Utah State to its first NCAA Tournament win in a generation last season. He’s now the head coach at the University of Washington.
When Sprinkle and the ‘Cat men’s hoops team swept Montana in 2023 on the way to a second straight Big Sky Conference tournament title, some wondered if the tables had finally turned in MSU’s favor after the tradition-laden Grizzlies dominated the in-state rivalry in men’s hoops for so long. Before then, Griz head coach Travis DeCuire had just two losses in nine seasons to the rival, and had never lost at home until MSU won at Dahlberg in January of that season.
But others wondered if the magic was sustainable after Sprinkle departed for Utah State following that dominant three-year run that saw MSU play in three straight league tournament title games. And when Montana swept Montana State in Matt Logie’s first season at the helm, that wonder gained steam.
Logie earned a huge glimmer of optimism after his team forged one of the great second halves in Big Sky Tournament history to overcome a nine-point deficit and run away with an 85-70 win in the league tournament championship game last spring against the favored Grizzlies.
So when Montana State cut a 17-point deficit to three points in the final 90 seconds in front of a raucous crowd of 5,766 on Saturday at Dahlberg Arena, observers probably wondered: Could Logie and the ‘Cats do it again?
Although Montana needed all four free throws from Malik Moore and Money Williams to sew up a 77-70 victory, in many ways, Saturday did not seem like a Griz team escaping. Instead, it felt like a return to the status quo.
“Fun win,” Montana 11th-year head coach Travis DeCuire said. “Fun win. The environment was great. We recruit to this environment a little bit, so to have our fans show up the way they did, we felt like we had a sixth man out there tonight.
“This is one of those days where you challenge your team to pay attention to details. Do your job is the theme. We did a phenomenal job of executing, as well as we have all year, and then in the second half and down the stretch, we used that grit to hold them off.”
The Bobcats are operating this season with an unorthodox lineup that features a whole collection of players who are 6-foot-6 or taller. The height and length of Logie’s 2025 roster allows for MSU to switch relentlessly on defense.
On Saturday though, despite Williams’ massive struggles — he missed an open dunk, slipped on the floor while trying to gather a loose ball and took a collection of forced shots that didn’t find the mark — and despite UM hitting just 4-of-14 attempts from beyond the 3-point arc, the host Grizzlies controlled the game.
Kai Johnson, a transfer from Division II Western Washington, did whatever he wanted with the ball in his hands. He used ball screens to get to his right and showed an array of finishing shots at the rim on the way to 25 points, his career-high as a Griz against a D-I opponent, on a night he didn’t hit a 3-pointer.
Moore, a transfer from Pepperdine, hit a trio of triples, including one to start the second half that helped push UM’s lead to its largest of the evening.
And Joe Pridgen, a senior transfer from Northeastern, slipped, rolled and cut his way to open bucket after open bucket on the way to 14 points and six rebounds.
It’s impossible to anoint this Griz team as the equal of some of DeCuire’s other teams over the last 11 years. Montana’s squads in 2018 and 2019 were among the best the league has seen this century and each squad won 26 games on the way to the NCAA Tournament.
And it’s also hard to count out Montana State, despite a 3-5 Big Sky start that includes a whole variety of wins and losses by seven points or less. That was the story of MSU last year before the Bobcats found their stride.
Before last spring, no team other than a No. 1 or No. 2 seed had captured the league tournament title. MSU got beat down 88-69 in Missoula in mid-February and sat at 6-7 in conference play. Then MSU caught fire, winning six of eight down the stretch, including three straight in the Big Sky Tournament capped by a championship game win over the Griz.
“We have a group of guys who really care and they are trying to achieve something that’s never been done in the history of the conference,” Logie said, referring to advancing to four straight NCAA Tournaments out of the Big Sky. “They have taken on that responsibility with a lot of selflessness and determination, especially considering the adversity we’ve faced thus far. Our best is yet to come.”
Saturday did mean a few things. It meant this version of Montana remains really tough to beat at home, as evidenced by UM’s 10-1 record in the Garden City this winter. It means DeCuire continues to own Montana State, both overall and in Missoula. Saturday’s win moved the UM alum to 15-5 against MSU and 9-1 against the ‘Cats at Dahlberg Arena.
And Saturday also means that Montana can win even if Williams, one of the most hyped recruits of the DeCuire era, does not play well. Saturday, he made just two of his nine field goal attempts and scored eight points (four at the free throw line) while also committing a pair of turnovers.
A collection of Griz who have never played in the rivalry led Montana to a thorough victory. As the final seconds ticked down, several prominent UM hoops boosters who sit court side could be seen with exuberant looks on their faces and their hands thrust into the sky in triumph.
Although Montana State’s football team pounded the Griz 34-11 in Bozeman on the way to a national championship game appearance, and although Montana State’s women’s basketball team is still unbeaten in Big Sky play while riding an 11-game winning streak overall after a one-point win Saturday in Missoula, this will not be another “Year of the Bobcats.”
For so many years, the basketball programs at Montana had a formidable advantage against their in-state rivals, particularly because of the unparalleled success of the Jud Heathcote coaching tree that includes Jim Brandenburg, Mike Montgomery, Stew Morrill, Blaine Taylor, Don Holst, Larry Krystkowiak, Wayne Tinkle and now DeCuire on the men’s side along with longtime women’s hoops coach Robin Selvig.
Sprinkle halted that momentum for a moment in time and beat DeCuire three times in the span of two years, including handing him his lone rivalry loss in Missoula.
It remains to be seen what this Griz team can do moving forward. But Saturday night sure felt like a return to the way things used to be, with the Grizzlies looking like the championship favorite and the Bobcats looking like the team searching for enough consistency to finish in the middle of the pack.
“Missoula is awesome,” Pridgen said. “To have adversity hit us and then to know we have a sixth man on our side – and they really showed up tonight – to have that, it helped us get over that hump. We were able to take off at that point and I loved it.”
