Montana faces top defense in Sacramento State

Montana vs. Sacramento State
Monday / 7 p.m. / Missoula, Mont.

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Regardless of what happened during the non-conference portion of the season, each Big Sky team started fresh on Saturday, opening league play with a 0-0 mark.

For the 10^th year in a row, Montana took advantage.

Montana opened Big Sky Conference play in a big way, coming from behind to beat Northern Arizona, 79-72. The Grizzlies will now look to pick up another home win before embarking on a daunting road trip.

Sacramento State comes to town Monday night for a pre-New Year's Eve celebration. The athletics department will be giving away 500 free general-admission tickets Monday night before the game.

"We haven't won a lot of games up this point, and we're still trying to find ourselves, so to start off 2-0 would be huge," head coach Travis DeCuire said. "It's one game at a time. Sac State is coming off a loss, and sometimes teams are harder to beat coming off a loss. They'll be physical and they'll be mentally tough. We have to be tougher and beat them to balls, and we have to play our way."

More from Saturday's win…

Montana won its Big Sky Conference opener for the 10^th season in a row.
Montana improved to 10-0 all-time against Northern Arizona under Travis DeCuire.
The Grizzlies have now won four consecutive home games and are 32-3 inside Dahlberg Arena since February 2017.
Montana's two-highest point totals have come in the past two games. This, despite the fact that Montana didn't score its first point at Omaha until the 14:53 mark, and neither team scored until the 16:19 mark vs. Northern Arizona.
Montana used a 15-2 run midway through the second half to turn a six-point deficit into a seven-point advantage that the Grizzlies would never relinquish. During the run, Montana shot 6-of-8, getting seven points from Sayeed Pridgett and four apiece from Kendal Manuel and Kyle Owens. Northern Arizona was 1-for-7 shooting with three turnovers.
Montana trailed by as many as 10 points, including eight points in the second half. It was the team's largest second-half comebacks of the season. Overall, the Grizzlies trailed for 22:44 before taking the lead for good for the final 9:21. It marked the second time this season the Grizzlies have won after trailing by double digits. Montana trailed by as many as 13 points – and for 25:12 total – in a 14-point win over MSU Northern (Nov. 10).
Montana made 50.0 percent of its shot attempts (30-of-60) including 58.1 percent in the second half (18-of-31). The second-half shooting percentage was the second-highest of the season, trailing only the second period in a win over Texas Southern (61.9).
Over the final 6 minutes, Montana was 6-for-6 from the free-throw line and never turned the ball over. In the previous game, an overtime loss at Omaha in which Montana led down the stretch but couldn't finish, Montana missed four free throws in the final 90 seconds of regulation and turned the ball over twice in the final minute of overtime.
Northern Arizona made eight of its first 16 three-point attempts, but none over the final 13:30. During that span, Montana's defense took away good looks, with the Lumberjacks attempting just three triples.
After turning the ball over nine times in the first half – including six times in the opening 9 minutes – Montana turned the ball over just four times in the second half. The Grizzlies have now turned the ball over more times than their opponents just once in the past eight games.
Sayeed Pridgett recorded his fourth double-double of the season, leading Montana with 27 points and 10 rebounds. He has now led Montana for rebounding in 10 of 12 games and for scoring nine times.
Pridgett continues to move up the school's all-time scoring list, becoming the 13^th Grizzly to reach 1,300 career points. On Saturday, he passed Derrick Pope (1979-83) and Shawn Samuelson (1992-96). He needs 16 points to jump Ken McKenzie (1972-75) into 12^th place.
Senior Kendal Manuel scored 16 points – all in the second half – connecting on two big three-pointers. Before shooting 4-for-6 from the floor in the second half, Manuel had missed 13 of 14 shots over the previous three periods.
Manuel was a perfect 6-for-6 from the free-throw line and has now made nine consecutive and 32 of his past 33 attempts. On the season, Manuel ranks 19^th nationally with a .919 percentage.
Montana got solid production from three bench pieces, with Derrick Carter-Hollinger, Kyle Owens and Jared Samuelson combining for 10-of-12 shooting. Carter-Hollinger scored eight points and pulled down seven rebounds, while Owens also had seven boards while chipping in with six points, including a put-back bucket to cap Montana's 15-2 run and force a Lumberjacks timeout with 7:01 to play. Playing just 9:29, Samuelson was very efficient, scoring nine points. He scored within a minute of entering the game and again during an 8-0 Griz run in the first half. His and-one bucket started to turn the tide, igniting an 18-3 scoring run after Montana faced its largest second-half deficit.
Josh Vazquez has led Montana with five assists in each of the past two games. During that span, the freshman has 10 assists compared to just one turnover.
Asked to take on a defender down low at times, Timmy Falls held his own and led Montana with a +16 on the plus/minus system. Falls scored seven points while swiping two passes and dishing out two assists while recording zero turnovers.
After using the same starting lineup in six consecutive games from Nov. 22 through Dec. 18, the Grizzlies have now used a different combination in each of the past three contests. On Saturday, Mack Anderson made his second straight start while Josh Vazquez started for the first time since Nov. 18 (Game 4).

Scouting Sacramento State

Sacramento State enters the game with a 7-3 record overall, earning non-conference wins over Simpson, UC Riverside, UC Davis, Pepperdine, UC Merced, Cal State Fullerton and Cal Poly.
The Hornets are coming off a 66-51 road loss at Montana State on Saturday. Sac State shot just 34 percent from the field and trailed by double digits for the entirety of the second half.
Defense has been the Hornets' calling card, with just two teams scoring more than 60 points against them. Sac State is giving up just 53.5 points per game (third in NCAA), with opponents shooting .241 from deep (second).
Sac State has been out-rebounded just three times this season and holds a +5.7 rebounding margin.
On the flip side, Sac State ranks last in the Big Sky for scoring (62.1 points per game), shooting (.404) and three-pointers made per game (4.4).
Senior captain Josh Patton has started 73 consecutive contests and is averaging 2.30 blocked shots per game (37^th in NCAA) while leading the Hornets with 13.5 points per game on .580 shooting (sixth in Big Sky). A season ago, he was a third-team All-Big Sky selection.
Junior Ethan Esposito moved into the starting lineup this year and leads the team with 5.7 rebounds per game, while ranking second for scoring (9.6).
Senior Izayah Mauriohooho-Le'afa returned to the lineup at Montana State after missing the previous two games due to injury. He is averaging 9.3 points per game with nearly two-thirds of his shot attempts coming from three-point range.
Brian Katz is in his 12^th season leading the Hornets, who went 15-16 a season ago. He is the winningest coach in school history (DI era), and in 2015 was named the Big Sky Coach of the Year.

Series vs. the Hornets
Montana is 43-9 vs. Sacramento State, winning five in a row in the series. The Grizzlies had two memorable wins over the Hornets last March, winning in Sacramento to clinch the Big Sky regular-season title before playing them the following week during the quarterfinals of the conference tournament. In Missoula, Montana has been nearly unbeatable, winning 25 of 27 meetings vs. Sacramento State.

Travis DeCuire is 7-4 vs. Sacramento State, having some success the past two seasons after beginning his career 2-4 against the Hornets. As a freshman in 2016-17, Sayeed Pridgett scored 28 points vs. Sacramento State, and he was in double figures for scoring in all three meetings a season ago. During the regular-season finale in Sacramento last year, Timmy Falls had 16 points and five assists. He added seven assists in the meeting in Missoula last January. Kendal Manuel was in double figures over each of the past two contests, including 11 points and seven assists in the tournament game.

Complete Game Notes in PDF format, including additional notes, stats, charts and player pages

Gallery: (12/28/2019) MBB: vs. Northern Arizona (12.28.19

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Players Mentioned

Mack Anderson

Derrick Carter-Hollinger

Timmy Falls

Kendal Manuel

Kyle Owens

Sayeed Pridgett

Jared Samuelson

Josh Vazquez

University of Montana Athletics