Griz lose 71-67 at San Francisco

Saturday, December 21

San Francisco, Calif.

4:00 PM (MT)

Montana

7-6,0-0Big Sky

San Francisco

10-3,0-0WCC

Montana

San Francisco

Photo by: Jackson Wagner

12/21/2024 7:36:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score Photo Gallery

By: Montana Sports Information

It's the type of road performance that Montana has been looking for this season, and one that should give them confidence heading into Big Sky play the first week of the 2025 calendar year, but Saturday night's 71-67 loss at San Francisco still stung for the Grizzlies.

Montana clawed back from a 14-point first-half deficit and had it within one possession in the final minutes, but couldn't get the final push to pull off the upset.

Joe Pridgen had 21 points and 10 rebounds for his third double-double of the season in the loss. Te'Jon Sawyer had 13 points for Montana in a homecoming game for the San Francisco native.

There was plenty of good things for the Grizzlies. They outrebounded the bigger Dons, shot better than them from the floor (45.5 to 43.8), and won the paint 34-20. In the end, hot shooting from three and a 15-attempt advantage at the free throw line were enough to tilt things in favor of the hosts.

"We have to appreciate the way the guys competed, they hung in there," head coach Travis DeCuire said. "USF got hot early in the first half and again in the second half. We just continued to fight and play physical, and I think our tenacity on the defensive side of the ball kept us in the game. We forced some turnovers, forced some tough shots, just really couldn't get it going offensively like normal."

San Francisco improves to 10-3 overall and 8-0 at home with two of their losses coming against currently ranked opponents. They were just outside of the top 50 in the NCAA in most advanced ratings systems entering Saturday's game.

The Grizzlies fall to 7-6 on the year with all six losses coming on the road. The six opponents that Montana played on the road are all ranked higher than the top Big Sky Conference team, which should more than prepare Montana for its first road trip of conference play in January.

They also showed plenty of growth following a tough loss at Northern Iowa on Monday.

"The most important thing is that you want to be proud of the product that you put on the floor," DeCuire said. "We didn't feel that way on Monday, so we needed to clean some things up and most of it was just our competitive effort and energy. I thought we brought that today."

The Griz started well behind the duo of Moore and Pridgen. The two Grizzlies combined for the first dozen Grizzly points, and six minutes into the game gave Montana a 10-8 advantage.

Montana made five of its first nine shots in the game to build the lead, but got cold following that. Unfortunately, San Francisco had its best stretch of the first half shooting at the same time.

The Dons connected on four straight shots as part of an 11-0 run that gave USF a 19-10 lead. Pridgen ended the run with a lay-up, which gave him eight of Montana's first 12 points. The Griz trailed by double digits for a stretch before they got hot again to end the half.

Kai Johnson and Austin Patterson knocked down two quick threes and Sawyer had a slam dunk over his defender to get Montana back within single digits. Pridgen had another lay-up to bring his scoring total up to 12 points and cut the USF lead to just seven at 33-26.

The Dons hit a triple to send the game into the halftime break at 36-26.

The teams both came out of the break red-hot. Montana mae its first four shots of the second half, but couldn't cut into the deficit as San Francisco opened the half 5-of-7 shooting with three makes from the arc. It allowed them to go up 49-35 with 115 minutes remaining.

From that point on, the Grizzlies outscored the Dons 32-22.

The comeback started on a made three-pointer from Sawyer with 8:59 remaining that cut the lead back within single digits. It also started a streak for Montana of seven made field goals in nine attempts with seven points from Sawyer during the run.

When Pridgen converted a layup on an assist from Sawyer with just over three minutes remaining, Montana had knocked the lead all the way down to a single possession at 65-62.

They could never get back to a level score, however. San Francisco used the free throw line to build the lead back up to seven points. The Griz missed four straight shots down the stretch.

"We wanted to get over the hump. We kept talking about double bangs, which are a stop and a score," DeCuire said. "We were in position to do that multiple times, and I thought we didn't execute great the couple of times that we got it to three or four, I thought we got a little bit antsy and took some tough shots."

The Griz still didn't go quietly. Pridgen put another opposing player on a poster with his 16^th dunk of the season, and perhaps most impressive, with 11 seconds remaining. He finished over 7-2 defender Saba Gigiberia to make it a four-point game.

Pridgen had a very impressive start to the game, and helped set the tone for Montana all night as they battled against the Dons.

"(Pridgen) was active and locked in early," DeCuire said. "I thought he did a good job executing on the defensive side of the ball, was in all the right places in terms of how we were defending ball screens, and when you put yourself in the right places good things happen."

Sawyer battled for an offensive rebound following the missed free throw, and got Montana another possession down four. They got a look at the rim, but a contested lay-up from Moore rattled off the rim and San Francisco was able to hold on for the 71-67 win.

Montana won the second half 41-35 with four players getting at least 18 of the 20 available minutes. Sawyer scored 11 of his points in the second half and played every single minute in his homecoming game.

Pridgen had nine second half points in 19 minutes, Moore also saw 19 minutes of action, while Money Williams had 18 and Kai Johnson 15.

"That was the group that was able to be effective on both sides of the ball," DeCuire said. "We had some guys that were giving us some things on the defensive side and some guys that were able to help us score, but we weren't getting good balance on both sides, so I just wanted to find a group that could flow on offense and execute defensively at the same time."

Montana will hope to build off the competitive game and use the 12-day break between games to heal up and get some family time. Montana doesn't play again until a January 2 game at Eastern Washington.

They finish the non-conference schedule perfect at home and winless on the road for the third time in 11 years under DeCuire. They challenged themselves greatly with one of the most difficult schedules in the country, and will hope the rewards can come in 2025.

"I think there were some successes. We had the four-game win streak at home over the holiday was huge for us coming off such a tough start," DeCuire said. "I thought we had to sweep the Summit and got off to a really good start against St. Thomas, but got in some foul trouble and our depth was challenged. I thought up to that point we were playing some good basketball, and then we hit a low.

"Now we're headed in the right direction, so we got what we wanted out of our schedule," DeCuire concluded. "Win as many games as you can, win all your games at home, show some fight, and improve."