Griz open Big Sky-Summit Challenge at NDSU

Montana at North Dakota State
Wednesday, Jan 3. / 6:00 p.m. (MT) / Watch / Live Stats

The final stop on Montana's five game, 28-day road trip is here as the Grizzlies open the Big Sky-Summit Challenge against North Dakota State on Wednesday. It's the second meeting between the two teams this year and third over the previous two seasons.

The Grizzlies (8-5, 1-1 Big Sky) will look to get revenge for a 78-69 loss in Missoula back in November. The game will tip at 6:00 p.m. (MT). The stream is available to purchase through the Summit League Network through the Midco Sports Plus app.

Montana have had a successful road trip with a 3-1 record, but have dealt with plenty of hardships as well during the run. Money Williams is out indefinitely with a foot injury while Laolu Oke missed last Saturday's win against Idaho State.

Still, the Grizzlies opened Big Sky league play with a road split. Brandon Whitney, back in the starting lineup, had a career-day against the Bengals with 20 points, nine assists, and seven rebounds. In addition to the impressive stat line, the senior guard also scored his 1,000^th career point in the win.

He's the first Grizzly since Sayeed Pridgett to have a game of at least 20/9/7, and it's one of just 10 such stat lines in the entire NCAA this year.

Dischon Thomas had a big day with his first double-double as a Grizzly (18 points, 11 rebounds), while Te'Jon Sawyer stepped into the starting lineup for the first time in his D1 career and matched a season-high with 17 points.

The Grizzlies continued a season-long trend with both games last week, as they still have not played in a highly competitive game. Saturday's win over Idaho State is the closest competition the Griz have been in all year and they won by eight points, leading by double-digits late. They have had second-half lead changes in just two games, and ISU was just the third game to feature more than six lead changes.

This is also the third home-and-home series for Montana against a non-conference opponent this year. They swept the other two, going 4-0 against San Jose State and UC Davis. The only team in the country to play this many non-conference series', Montana are looking to go 5-1.

It's valuable experience for conference play and how to make adjustments to opponents the second time you face them. The Grizzlies were able to back up wins against the Spartans and Aggies. Now, they will look to solve how to beat the Bison after a nine-point loss in the first meeting.

This is the first of two games in the Big Sky-Summit Challenge. It's the first year of the competition between the two conferences. There will be 36 total games played between the men and women. Road wins will count for 1.5 points while home wins will be worth 1.0 point. The conference with the most total points at the conclusion of the week will be declared the winner.

Montana's home game in the competition will be played on Saturday against South Dakota.

The game will also feature a celebration of the life of Grizzly legend Anthony Johnson. Fans can honor Anthony today with a gift to University of Montana Autism inclusion and programming for students and community members with Autism and related disorders.

Anthony and his wife, former Lady Griz basketball player Shaunte Nance-Johnson, shared the dream of all of their children having the opportunity to become Grizzlies, including their middle son, Apollo-Kahn, a brilliant autistic six-year-old.

RECAPPING THE ROAD TRIP
Montana are 3-1 on the current road trip, which began on Dec. 17 against San Jose State. The Grizzlies haven't played a home game since Dec. 9. The Grizzlies opened the trip with two straight wins, which brought their overall winning streak up to five games.

They had a significant setback at Weber State, losing a conference game by 30 points for the first time ever under Coach DeCuire. Montana responded on Saturday against Idaho State with an eight-point win to move to 8-5 overall and 1-1 in Big Sky play.

They have five players averaging double-figures on the road trip, led by Aanen Moody's 13.3 points per game. Te'Jon Sawyer (12.8), Brandon Whitney (12.5), Dischon Thomas (11.5), and Money Williams (11.0) are all averaging 10-plus points per game as well.

Montana average seven more rebounds per game on the road trip and are shooting 47.4 percent as a team, but have struggled from the three-point line with just a 32.1 percent success rate.

SCOUTING NORTH DAKOTA STATE (7-7, 0-1 Summit)

The Bison enter Wednesday on a three-game losing streak. They opened Summit League play last week with just a single game, falling at home to South Dakota 75-66.
The loss was the first at home for North Dakota State, who entered last week 5-0 inside the Scheels Center.
Head coach David Richman is 182-121 in his 10^th season in charge of the Bison. He has led NDSU to plenty of success with seven top three finishes in the league.
NDSU ranks 80^th in the NCAA in three-point shooting. They make 8.0 per game on 36.2 percent shooting.
The Bison have taken care of the ball very well this year, committing just 10.5 turnovers per game. It's the 51^st best rate in the country.
They average 76.0 points per game while allowing 70.6. The 5.4 scoring margin is just outside of the top 150 in the country.
The margin is greatly helped by a 108-14 victory over Oak Hills Christian on Dec. 10, which is the Bison's last win.
Boden Skunberg leads NDSU in both scoring (13.1) and rebounding (5.1).
Damari Wheeler-Thomas averages 12.4 points per game and leads the Bison with 45 assists.
Andrew Morgan averages 10.4 points per game and just over four rebounds.
The Bison are 240^th in the NCAA Net Rankings and 252^nd in the Pomeroy Ratings.

SERIES HISTORY VS. THE BISON
Montana leads the all-time series against North Dakota State 8-4. They are 2-3 in games played in Fargo, but won the most recent meeting there 82-75 last season.

The Bison won the last matchup, which came this year on Nov. 16 in Missoula. Wheeler-Thomas scored 22 points and played all 40 minutes for NDSU. Moody led Montana with 18 points while Money had 15 off the bench.

GRIZ NOTES

Montana went 6-1 in December. They last won six games in a calendar month in February 2023, going 6-1 to end the regular season.
Montana still has not played a game decided by less than eight points.
It's all about putting the ball in the basket. Montana is 8-0 when shooting the same or better than their opponent from the field, while they are 0-5 when shooting a worse field goal percentage.
The three-point line has been key to Montana's success this season. They are 7-0 when shooting a better percentage than their opponent from three-point range on Tuesday. They are 1-5 when shooting worse from three than their opponent.
In eight wins, Montana are outscoring opponents by 95 points in the first half. They enter the break with an average lead of 11.8 points.
Montana are now 8-44 under Travis DeCuire in away non-conference games. They won consecutive road games in the non-conference for the first time under DeCuire and the first time since 2010 two weeks ago.
They are aiming for a third straight road, non-conference win. Montana hasn't done that since 2005, when a Larry Krystkowiak-coached team won four straight as part of Montana's 24-7 season in which they won an NCAA Tournament game.
They have an average margin of victory of 19.3 points per game in the eight wins.
Shooting has been key to victory, as Montana are shooting 51.7 percent in wins and holding opponents to just 41.1 percent.
Rebounding has been huge as well with Montana outrebounding opponents by an average of 9.0 per game in wins. They have outrebounded opponents in 9 of 13 games, and are 7-2 when finishing with more rebounds.
The Griz are a top 100 team in assists per game and are 7-2 in games when they finish with more assists than the opponent.
The Grizzlies used just an eight-man rotation against Idaho State, the fewest players to appear in a game this year. There were four players with 30-plus minutes, including nearly 39 minutes from Brandon Whitney for a new season high.
Montana have been ahead by 11.9 points per game at halftime in eight wins, but have been trailing by an average of 14.2 points per game in losses.
The Griz have had a run of at least 10-0 in six of 13 games this year.
DeCuire's teams have been susceptible to three-minute scoring droughts, but the Griz have just three such runs over the previous five games as they have had consistent scoring overall.
Uni-watch: Montana have struggled in their traditional maroon road uniforms. The Griz are 1-5 in maroon this year, including a home loss to NDSU as part of the Mike Montgomery Classic. They are 2-0 in their alternate gray uniforms with both wins coming on the road.
Montana scored 48 points in the paint against Idaho State, the most against a D1 opponent this year.
The Griz bench had scored 20-plus points in nine straight games before last Saturday's 12-point outing against Idaho State. Montana was undermanned in the game with two starters out injured, and it led to the smallest rotation of the year with just eight players getting minutes.

WHITNEY 1K
Senior guard Brandon Whitney has averaged at least 10.0 points per game in all three seasons at Montana. He became the 36th player in program history to reach 1,000 points on Dec. 30 against Idaho State.

He is also the 15th player in Grizzly history with 1,000 points/200 rebounds/200 assists. Whitney is also the 7th player in Montana's 1,000-point club coached by Travis DeCuire. Aanen Moody has also reached 1,000 points, but scored 682 of those for other schools.

DECEMBER TO REMEMBER
This will be a unique December for Montana with three home games in the first eight days followed by a very long road trip. The Grizzlies won't return home to Missoula until January 6, making it 28 full days without a home game.

It's the first time since 2016-17 that Montana will play five straight regular season games away from home, and the first time since 2012-13 that they will play five straight true road games. They played a BracketBusters game against Davidson on the road that year, which was added in between two conference road trips.

The 28-day gap between home games is the longest since 2006-07, when Montana also played five straight road games over the holiday break. They went from Dec. 13 to Jan. 13 without a home game that year.

NON-CONFERENCE HOME-AND-HOMES
This is the first time in program history that Montana will play three non-conference opponents in home-and-home series. The last time they did it against a single opponent was Wyoming in 2016-17, and the only other time they've had multiple series in the Big Sky era was in 1970-71 when they played Washington and Puget Sound.

The Grizzlies will have the first matchup with San Jose State on Saturday. They will meet again later in December. Montana also played the first game of two against UC Davis and North Dakota State at the start of November.

Montana are the only team in the country with three non-conference home-and-home series this year.

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Players Mentioned

Aanen Moody

Laolu Oke

Te'Jon Sawyer

Dischon Thomas

Brandon Whitney

Money Williams

University of Montana Athletics