THE MATCHUP
An NCAA Tournament team from a year ago visited Dahlberg Arena in Montana’s final non-conference home game on Tuesday. South Dakota State’s 2022 team might have been the most successful of the Jackrabbits’ very successful last decade, going 30-4, not losing to a Summit League opponent, and bowing gracefully out of the NCAA Tournament as a No. 13 seed with a single-digit first-round loss to Providence.
SDSU is down from that peak with just three wins entering Tuesday’s game, but that includes a win over Boise State and two of the Jackrabbits’ losses were to ranked teams in Arkansas and Alabama. Montana entered on a two-game losing streak, and hadn’t beaten a Division I opponent since November 18.
THE RESULT
In their most complete performance of the season – and their best offensive performance against a Division I team in quite some time – the Griz started hot and kept rolling to an 81-56 win. That included a 48-24 lead at halftime as Montana shot 55.6% from the field and assisted on 12 of its 20 field goals in the first half. The Jackrabbits never cut the lead under 20 points in the second half as Travis DeCuire was able to roll out 11 players altogether. The Griz finished the game shooting 56.6% – they actually shot slightly better in the second half than in their blistering first 20 minutes – and led by as many as 35 before a 10-0 SDSU run in the final two minutes provided the final margin.
THE STANDOUTS
Junior guard Brandon Whitney with 23 points, shooting 10 of 12 from the field by getting to the basket for layups and short floaters. It was his season-high and only the third time he’s reached double figures so far. Redshirt senior guard Aanen Moody added 20 points in just 10 field-goal attempts, including a scorching stretch in the first half when he made back-to-back 3-pointers and then added two mid-range jumpers, all in about four minutes of game time. Dischon Thomas had 17 points of 7 of 13 shooting and Josh Bannon, although he didn’t expand on a flash in the first half when he dropped in back-to-back jump hooks, one with either hand, grabbed 14 rebounds. Matthew Mors led South Dakota State with 15 points.
BOX SCORE
QUOTABLE
“When you get side-to-side, you open up the floor, and we’ve got good enough shooting where you have to respect that, especially when your post players can shoot. We’d been holding onto the ball a little bit too long in our past times, and so we really spent a lot of time on pace. And when the floor opens up, Brandon Whitney is going to be able to get to the rim.” — Montana head coach Travis DeCuire
“(We have) respect for what they’re capable of, respect for the things that they’ve accomplished. When we went in there last time, they had the longest home winning streak in the country. We weren’t necessarily saying we’re coming in to break it, but we had a lot of respect for how good they were. … And then we knew they were going to come in…I don’t necessarily want to say revenge, but it was an opportunity for them to kind of steal that victory back, and they’ve been playing good basketball. So our guys had a good level of respect for them, and they gave their best effort.” — Decuire. Montana beat SDSU in their last meeting, 85-74 in Brookings on December 22, 2018.
SOCIAL
Who’s next
The Griz (4-5) play at North Dakota State on Saturday.
