Griz to face #3 Longhorns in first round of NCAA tourney

It's been a minute since Montana men's tennis has been able to say it is competing for a national championship at the NCAA tournament. Over a decade to be exact, with UM making its first and only appearance in the postseason back in 2014.

The Big Sky Champion Grizzlies will flip that script on Saturday as Montana travels to Austin to take on the No. 3 seed Texas Longhorns in the first round of the 2025 NCAA Championship. The Griz (19-6) will face this year's SEC Champion Longhorns (25-4) on May 3 in the round of 64 at the Texas Tennis Center starting at 1 p.m. local time, noon Mountain.

The dual marks the first time Montana has ever faced Texas on the tennis court. The winner of the match advances on to face the winner of the Michigan vs Cornell dual in the round of 32 on Sunday.

In basketball parlance, Montana heads to Austin looking for the 16-1 upset, but with a lineup top-heavy with juniors head coach Jason Brown wants to start making these tournament appearances a habit for his Grizzlies. After all, this year's Griz are used to upsets after taking down top-seed Northern Arizona in the Big Sky Championship last week in Phoenix.

"I think these guys have a real proper sense of belief in their own abilities. We've won a lot of matches in a row, we're coming in confident, and we're excited just to be here and see how it's done at the top level of the NCAAs. We talked a lot about trying to play within ourselves. You can't red line for two hours and beat a team like this. But if you find your very top level and they have a bad day, or we get some help, leaving the possibilities open is the key," said Brown.

"I think we've got some guys who can really play ball. Part of that is just the belief system and I think these guys have that. They've got a lot of self-confidence from all the hard work they've put in over the past nine months."

Gallery: (5-2-2025) MTEN: NCAA Tourney practice photos

COVERAGE: Texas will provide a live stream of each match at the tournament and will have live scoring of each match as well. Links to the coverage can be found at the team's schedule page on GoGriz.com.

A GLIMPSE OF THE GRIZ: Montana's historic season continues Saturday in Austin as the Big Sky Champion Grizzlies look to make more history with the program's first NCAA tournament win.

Montana received the Big Sky's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2014 last Saturday after the No. 3 seed Griz upset No. 1 seed Northern Arizona 4-1 at the league's championship tournament in Phoenix.

WIN STREAK: The Griz enter the match on a hot streak as winners of five straight throughout the month of Aril and eight of their last nine duals overall. That one loss? A conference match against Idaho State in Pocatello, a loss that UM avenged at the Big Sky tournament in Phoenix with a 4-1 win.

Montana set a new school record for most dual wins in a season in 2025, with the total now at 19. The previous record was set in 2012 when the Griz totaled 16 wins in a Big Sky regular season championship year. Last time UM made the NCAA tourney the Griz finished the year strong with four straight wins but had an up and down year at 13-12.

AWARDS HAUL: Brown was named Big Sky Coach of the Year for the second time in his career last week as the Griz hauled in the postseason awards. Duncan McCall was named Big Sky Freshman of the Year and was named to the singles all-conference second team as well as earning a doubles honorable mention with his partner, fellow freshman Johnny Wilkinson.

Junior Tom Bittner was a unanimous first team selection in singles after a 13-5 season on court one, and fellow junior Baltazar Wiger-Nordas went one better at 14-5 to earn first team honors as well. Bittner was also named Big Sky tournament MVP after clinching UM's win over Northern Arizona in the title match in dramatic fashion over the league's regular season MVP Dani Torres of NAU.

McCall also played a major part of UM's tournament win, clinching the quarterfinal and semifinal wins and securing team points in all three matches as well. He enters Saturday's match as a winner of six-straight singles matches and is now 18-5 on the year.

CHAMPIONS IN THE CLASSROOM: Not only did Montana win the Big Sky Championship this year on the court, the Griz once again took home a championship in the classroom. For the seventh-straight year the Griz have earned UM's Dustin Hollist Award for the top overall team GPA in Grizzly Athletics with a combined 3.80 cumulative GPA in the 2024 calendar year.

A LOOK AT THE LONGHORNS: Texas earned the No. 3 seed in the NCAA tourney after defeating No. 13 South Carolina 4-1 in the SEC Championship Tournament on USC's home courts in Columbia.

The Longhorns are led by sixth-year head coach Bruce Berque who holds a 148-34 overall record. Berque heads a program that for over a century has been one of the standard bearers in college tennis, winning 17 Southwest Conference Championships, 5 Big 12 Championships, the 2019 NCAA Championship, the 2024 national runner-up, and the SEC Championship in UT's first year in the league.

On the court the Longhorns are led by the nation's No. 1 ranked singles player in redshirt-freshman Timo Legout, who enters the match with a 34-3 overall record this season and is 21-2 during the spring duals season. Before his time at Texas he was rated the No. 12 player in the ITF World Junior Rankings and ranked as high as No. 406 in the ATP World Singles Rankings.

Legout and Lucas Brown are also the No. 10 ranked doubles pair in the nation at 18-12 together. All three of the Longhorns doubles pairs appear in this week's ITA top-90 rankings, and four of their six singles players are ranked nationally as well.

Legout and Coach Berque were named also the SEC player and coach of the year, respectively.

Griz to face #3 Longhorns in first round of NCAA tourney

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Tom Bittner

Duncan McCall

Baltazar Wiger-Nordas

Johnny Wilkinson

University of Montana Athletics

Griz to face #3 Longhorns in first round of NCAA tourney

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Tom Bittner

Duncan McCall

Baltazar Wiger-Nordas

Johnny Wilkinson

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