Montana opens regular season on Tuesday

MONTANA VS. NORTHWEST INDIAN COLLEGE
Tuesday Nov. 7 / 7:00 p.m. / Tickets / Watch / Live Stats

MONTANA AT OREGON
Friday Nov. 10 / 7:00 p.m. / Watch / Live Stats

The long wait is finally over. Montana men's basketball opens the 2023-24 season at home on Tuesday before hitting the road later in the week for a showdown with Oregon on Friday night in the Ducks' home opener.

It starts at home against Northwest Indian College, a community college in Bellingham, Wash. that has been a common opponent on Big Sky schedules over the last several years. This will be the first meeting between the Griz and the Eagles.

The opener should be a good warmup for the main course on Friday. It's the 29^th all-time meeting between the Ducks and Grizzlies and the third of the Travis DeCuire era.

There are always high expectations for Griz Hoops and this year is no different with the league's coaches picking Montana second and the media picking them third in the Big Sky. Before conference play begins in late December, Montana has to make their way through a gauntlet of a non-conference schedule.

The Grizzlies will play 13 games against non-league opponents. Northwest Indian College is one of three non-DI opponents, but the other 10 games will all be challenging. Oregon, Houston, and Nevada are all top 70 teams in the preseason KenPom rankings, and seven of the 10 games are against winning teams from 2022-23.

Oregon have high expectations, as always, in the Pac-12. Dana Altman enters his 14^th season in charge with a 321-140 record while with the Ducks, and 731 career wins at the D-I level. His teams have won 20 games in each of his 13 seasons.

The Ducks return three starters from last year's 21-15 team, including center N'Faly Dante who was named to the 20-person preseason Kareem Abdul-Jabbar watch list for the country's top center.

The goal in the early season will be creating chemistry and finding the lineups that will be most effective come March. Last season, Montana struggled to find their identity as a team until the back half of conference play, where they racked up seven wins in the final eight games.

This year, they are hoping to put it all together much sooner. DeCuire, in his 10^th season in charge at Montana, has built previous teams around strong defense. He is again hoping to put that together in 2023-24.

It's one of two keys for him. The other? Successfully integrating a talented group of newcomers into an existing core and finding roles for everyone. It's a tricky balance, but if DeCuire can get it right and get the buy-in from the roster it should lead to a team capable of competing for a Big Sky Championship come March.

COVERAGE
The home game against Northwest Indian College will be streamed on ESPN+ with "Voice of the Griz" Riley Corcoran calling the action.

The game against Oregon will be streamed on the Pac-12 Networks. AJ Kanell will handle play-by-play duties, while former Griz head coach and College Basketball Hall of Famer Mike Montgomery will provide analysis.

Corcoran's call for both games can also be heard on the Montana Grizzly Radio Network or the Varsity Network app.

BEER SALES IN DAHLBERG ARENA
Fans attending home games in Dahlberg Arena will be able to bring beers to their seats in the 2023-24 season. Beers will be allowed throughout the arena with a few exceptions. The students' section and courtside seating areas, along with sections 201 and 211, will not allow beer.

NORTHWEST INDIAN COLLEGE EAGLES

The community college in Bellingham has played two games this year against fellow community college opposition and have won both. They will play against Montana State on Monday night. They played against three Big Sky opponents in 2022-23, losing by a combined score of 399-164.

OREGON DUCKS

Oregon is coming off a 21-win season and a trip to the NIT Quarterfinals.
Head coach Dana Altman is in his 14^th season at Oregon and has won 20-plus games in each of the previous 13 years. He has an overall record of 321-140 while head coach of the Ducks. He is 21^st all-time in NCAA history with 731 career wins, which also ranks 6^th among active head coaches.
Center N'Faly Dante is one of 20 players on the Kareem Abdul-Jabar watch list for the top center in the NCAA. He was a First Team All-Pac-12 selection last year after season averages of 13.5 points, 8.2 rebounds, and 1.4 blocks.
The Ducks return three starters and seven players from last season's team. They added three DI transfers, one junior college transfer, and four freshmen during the offseason.
This will be the first home game of the season for Oregon. They will start their season on Monday in a neutral site matchup with Georgia.
Montana defeated Oregon 78-39 on Nov. 22, 1991. The Grizzlies had a young guard named Travis DeCuire come off the bench to score six points, grab four rebounds, dish out two assists and block two shots in 21 minutes.

GRIZ NOTES

Montana were picked to finish 2^nd/3^rd in the Big Sky this year in the Preseason Coaches' Poll and Media Poll. The Grizzlies finished 4^th in the league last year with a 10-7 record.
The Grizzlies have 14 straight seasons at .500 or better, making them one of just 15 schools nationally with such a streak.
Aanen Moody earned a spot on the Preseason All-Big Sky Conference team following a sensational debut season at Montana. The graduate guard was named Second Team All-Big Sky last year and also played his way onto a spot on the All-Tournament Team in Boise.
The Grizzlies return three starters from last year's team. Dischon Thomas and Brandon Whitney join Moody in returning to Missoula, while several key rotation players are also back.
The Grizzlies have broken the school record for free throw percentage in three straight seasons. Montana shot 78.8 percent last year. It broke the previous record of 78.5 percent in 2021-22, which broke the prior year's record of 78.2 percent. Montana ranked 6^th in the NCAA last year.
Blake Jones, Giordan Williams, and Te'Jon Sawyer all transfer in with D-I experience. Combined, the trio has 161 games of experience at this level. Williams has the most with78 appearances at Santa Clara, followed by Jones (51, George Mason) and Sawyer (32, Cal Baptist).
The Grizzlies will play three schools for the first time this year; Northwest Indian College, Houston, and UC Davis.
Travis DeCuire is 1-14 in his career against Pac-12 opponents, including an 0-3 record against Oregon. The Ducks have been ranked for two of the matchups. The lone win came in 2020 against Washington, as Montana picked up a 66-58 win in Seattle.
The Grizzlies were elite from beyond the arc on 2022-23 on both offense and defense. Montana made 37.2 percent of its three-point attempts on the year, the 34^th-best mark in the entire country. They also held opponents to 32.3 percent, the 82^nd-best in the NCAA.
The tempo of Montana limited opponents chances last year. The Griz allowed just over 52 field goal attempts per game to its opponents, the 19^th fewest of any team in the country.

10 YEARS OF DeCUIRE
Head coach Travis DeCuire enters his 10^th season at the University of Montana with a 177-112 overall record, and a 113-52 record in Big Sky play. He's one of the winningest coaches in university and league history.

DeCuire's teams have been .500 or better in all nine seasons and he's had four 20-win years. In a lineage of great coaches, he shares to program lead in 20-win seasons with Mike Montgomery, Blaine Taylor, and Wayne Tinkle.

He begins 2023-24 third in Big Sky history with 113 league wins, trailing only Weber State's Randy Rahe (198) and Montana State's Mick Durham (123). He's also sixth in league history in overall wins with a chance to move into the top five this year.

HOME AND HOMES
Montana has a unique non-conference schedule this season featuring three "home-and-home" series. The Grizzlies will host UC Davis, San Jose State, and North Dakota State this year. They will also travel to all three locations for away games.

The scheduling is a result of the new Big Sky-Summit Challenge, which pits the Grizzlies against the Bison after the two had already agreed to games in 2022-23 and 2023-24.

It is the first time since joining the Big Sky in 1963 that Montana played three such series in a single year. It's also just the second time that they have multiple home-and-home series in the same year, the only other instance being the 1970-71 season against Washington and Puget Sound.

This is the first time it has happened at all since 2016-17 when they played against Wyoming in both Missoula and Laramie.

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Players Mentioned

Blake Jones

Aanen Moody

Te'Jon Sawyer

Dischon Thomas

Brandon Whitney

Giordan Williams

University of Montana Athletics