SAN DIEGO, California — As the Big Sky Conference champions took the court at Viejas Arena on the San Diego State campus, you could see Montana State’s players soaking up the moment as they realized they were about to be a real life part of the madness.
MSU head coach Danny Sprinkle, holding the distinction of an alum leading his alma mater into the Big Dance, talked all week about how the NCAA Tournament is among the biggest sporting events in the world.
So when Amin Adamu’s first shot attempt was blocked just a few seconds into the game, one wondered if the veteran Bobcats were still enjoying the pageantry of the event that comes with advancing to a bigger stage than the program has reached since Sprinkle was a sweet-shooting freshman on Montana State’s last NCAA Tournament team in 1996.
But Texas Tech’s Bryson Williams hit nothing but the backboard on his first shot attempt of the night, too. Everyone gets nervous once the Madness commences, right?
Abdul Mohamed, one of three super seniors that helped Montana State to 27 wins and the school’s first outright Big Sky title in men’s hoops since 2002, buried a mid-range jump shot from the baseline.
And for a moment — 18 seconds to be exact — Montana State and its impressive faithful who once again traveled south to watch the Bobcats on the biggest stage could maintain the illusion just maybe MSU could be Friday’s Saint Peter’s, adding to the formula of what makes this tournament the most unpredictable postseason in sports.
Then Williams, Terrence Shannon Jr. and the astoundingly athletic Red Raiders from Lubbock settled in. And once they did, they put forth a performance that vaults third-seeded Texas Tech into the conversation as Final Four contenders on the way to a 97-62 blowout win to open this tournament site.
“We obviously didn’t play our best today and almost 100 percent of that has to do with Texas Tech,” Sprinkle said. “Tonight was, I mean this is the first time I’ve seen my play card all night. It felt like they were guarding me. I couldn’t even see my play card. They literally — that’s the best defensive team in the country for a reason. They make every catch hard. They contest not only every shot, they contest every pass, and they made it really difficult for us.
“And when they start making 3s — I think they started the game, they made 10 of their first 14. I don’t know if there’s anybody in the tournament that’s going to beat them if they shoot the ball that well.”
It’s not as if Texas Tech beating the Big Sky champions to extend the league’s drought in the NCAA Tournament to 16 years is some watershed moment. The Red Raiders entered the tournament as one of the top defensive squads in the country. They showed that prowess Friday, disrupting Montana State super senior point guard Xavier Bishop from start to finish. TT made Big Sky MVP Jubrile Belo, hobbled with an ailing knee, look pedestrian after he made Big Sky defenders look like children most of the season.
But it wasn’t Texas Tech’s ferocious defense that led to the Red Raiders ripping the Big Sky regular-season and tournament champions by 35 points. It was the fact that the third seed also shot the lights out of San Diego State’s home arena to punch a ticket to the second round of this year’s NCAA Tournament.
Following Williams’ miss on the first possession of the game, Texas Tech made 10 straight field goals over the span of nine minutes. TT went on an 18-2 run in the game’s first five minutes, then pushed the advantage to 32-9 before the first half was even half over.
The Red Raiders made 10 of their first 11 shots, 15 of their first 20 and sat at 18-of-25 from the floor, 7-of-10 from the 3-point line on the way to a 52-25 halftime lead. Shannon, a hyper-athletic 6-foot-6, 220-pound junior slasher from Chicago, hit his first three shots from beyond the arc and scored 15 of his team-high 20 points in the first half.
“It’s tough to get any momentum when you are down like that, but in the huddle we kept saying, keep fighting, keep fighting,” Montana State senior Xavier Bishop said. “Didn’t have the great start we wanted. They were hitting shots, took us out of a lot of things. They brought it for sure.”
To put into perspective how superior Texas Tech was to Montana State physically and athletically, all one had to do was look at Williams. Texas Tech’s shooting guard is a 6-foot-8, 240-pound senior with arms both long and bulging with muscle.
When he got a second-chance offensive rebound tipped to him and he drilled his fourth and final 3-pointer, giving him 20 points on 8-of-10 shooting with 14 minutes left to play, he ran by Belo. Williams and Belo looked almost identical in size. And Belo is one of the most physically impressive specimens in the Big Sky, a player who Sprinkle said was “playing at about 50 percent” but “when he’s 100 percent, he’s a Big XII athlete.”
The problem for Montana State on Friday was that Texas Tech has a roster of Big XII athletes. And TT’s bench is filled with so many jumping jacks, the Red Raiders are able to out-athlete even teams in their own Power 5 conference. Texas Tech swept Baylor, one of the four No.1 seeds in this tournament, and also swept Texas, a No. 6 seed in this year’s Big Dance.
“They’ve disrupted everybody they’ve played against,” Sprinkle said following his team finishing 27-8. “It’s tremendous. Like I said, when you see it in person, up close, their point guards are 6’6″, 220 and long and athletic. It’s not a normal team. But that’s how their staff recruits for Coach (Mike) Adams because that’s the players he likes. They’re dogs. They are literally as real as real gets.
A key factor in Montana State winning the Big Sky this season came in MSU’s ability to take care of the basketball thanks to Adamu and Bishop, it’s super senior backcourt. On Friday, MSU committed 16 turnovers and shot just 38 percent, struggling to get in and out of its offensive sets all contest.
“And there’s no fake toughness,” Sprinkle continued on the Red Raiders. “There’s no fake chip on their shoulder. And for us, they exposed some of the things that we don’t do well with our size, our skill level and some of our passing.
“But they’ve done it to everybody. And it’s hard. You have to make some crazy shots against them. But if they’re shooting the basketball like that, I’m telling you, there’s not many teams in this tournament that’s going to beat them if they’re shooting that well offensively.”
Texas Tech finished the game shooting 66.7 percent (36-for-54), including 12-of-20 from beyond the arc. The lead swelled to 30 for the first time less than a minute into the second half and the final margin served as the largest margin in the game.
“Couldn’t be more thrilled the way we played,” Texas Tech first-year head coach Mark Andrews said. “One of the best games we’ve played all year. Excited that our guys are showing some improvement. And that’s the thing we want to do is continue to grow as a team. And I thought our guys did that. With that said, again, we did a great job preparing.
“We took Montana State very seriously, a very good program, well-coached. Like I told Coach Sprinkle after the game It’s the best, if not the best game we’ve played all year. We can build on that.”
Bishop, Adamu and Mohamed likely played their final games as Bobcats on Friday. The trio helped Sprinkle lead MSU to its first NCAA Tournament in 26 years. The 27 victories are Montana State’s most since joining the Big Sky as a charter member in 1963. And the tournament appearance is the fourth in school history.
“I already cried enough in the locker room,” Sprinkle said with a charming smile. “They believed in me when nobody else did. The only people that believed in me before that was my mentors and Waded Cruzado, our president, and Leon Costello.
“I didn’t have an interview anywhere else to be a head coach, not a junior college, nowhere. They took a chance on me. Those three kids took a chance on me. I couldn’t be more appreciative. They’re family for life. What they’ve done to reinvigorate Montana State basketball, on and off the court, I could never — there’s not enough words. There’s not enough money, there’s nothing, there’s not enough of anything that could express my gratitude and thanks to them for what they’ve done. Not only to me, to my staff and the teammates.”
THIS STORY WILL BE UPDATED LATER TODAY. Photos by Jack Murrey – MSU Creative Services. All Rights Reserved.
