Montana opens 2026-27 season at Oregon - University of Montana Athletics

MONTANA at OREGON
Monday, Nov. 2 / Eugene, Ore. / 8:00 p.m. (MT) / B1G Network / Live Stats

PREVIEW
The 13^th season of the Travis DeCuire era opens on Monday, Nov. 2 when the Montana men's basketball team travels to Eugene to face the Oregon Ducks. It's the third time in the last four seasons that Montana has played in Eugene.

The game will be broadcast on the B1G Network with Daron Caught and Jordan Taylor on the call. The "Voice of the Griz" Riley Corcoran will bring you radio coverage on KGVO and the Varsity Network App.

The Grizzlies are coming off their third straight trip to the Big Sky Conference Championship game and seventh overall in the last 12 years under Coach DeCuire. Montana finished the season 18-16 last year and 10-8 in Big Sky play.

Kenyon Aguino and Tyler Thompson highlight the returners for Montana as both starters are back after record-breaking freshmen seasons. The Grizzlies bring back three additional contributors and add 10 newcomers, seven transfers and three true freshmen, to the 2026-27 roster.

It will be a challenging start to the season as the Grizzlies open with the Ducks and will pay four of the first five games of the year on the road. The only home game will be this coming Wednesday against Salish Kootenai.

All told, the Grizzlies will be away from Missoula for seven of the first nine games of the year, all of which are against D-I opponents and one of which is a Big Sky Conference game at Northern Arizona on Dec. 3.

Montana will not only be playing with plenty of newcomers on the floor, but DeCuire will be adjusting to life without longtime associate head coach Chris Cobb and assistant coach Jay Flores.

The Ducks are also going through plenty of changes inside their program after longtime head coach Dana Altman announced his retirement just weeks before the start of the season.

Assistant coach Toby Stubblefield takes over for Altman as the interim coach for the 2025-26 season.

The Ducks have 11 newcomers and are coming off a 12-20 season, but they have reloaded with plenty of high-level talent, including freshman five-star recruit Tajh Ariza, son of NBA Champion Trevor Ariza.

The Griz and the Ducks will tip it off at 8:00 p.m. (MT) in Eugene.

SEASON OPENER HISTORY
Under Coach DeCuire, Montana is 7-5 in season opening games. The result has always depended on the location of the game, which typically also reveals the quality of opponent for Montana.

The Grizzlies are 7-0 when opening the season at home under DeCuire. They are 0-5 when starting the season on the road.

Montana has started the previous three seasons 1-0. The last time they lost a season opener was in 2022 at Duquesne. The other four season opening losses have come at Colorado, Stanford, and twice at USC.

GRIZ VS. THE BIG 10
Montana is 3-19 all-time when playing against a team from the Big 10. The last time the Grizzlies did so was in the 2024-25 season when they faced Oregon in the Ducks' first season in the league and then ended the year at the NCAA Tournament against Wisconsin.

The last Grizzly win against a Big 10 opponent came in 2006 when they defeated Minnesota 72-65 at the Old Spice Classic in Orland, Florida.

FAMILIARITY WITH THE DUCKS
Scheduling is always a difficult task for a Montana team that has thrived over the last dec-ade-plus with Coach DeCuire at the helm. The Grizzly mentor has established some sched-uling connections with certain schools, and that has helped him when putting together the 2026-27 non-conference schedule.

Montana will play nine D-I opponents this year and seven of them are teams that DeCuire has played against in his time in Missoula. Oregon is the 2nd most common non-conference opponent for DeCuire. This will be his 6th game in Eugene.

North Dakota, San Francisco and South Dakota are all on the schedule for the 4th time in the DeCuire era. That's tied for the 3rd most of any team. DeCuire has only played seven teams four or more times in the non-conference, and four of those seven are on the schedule this year.

This will be DeCuire's third meeting against Pepperdine and second against both Cal Poly and Utah State. Arizona State and Kansas State are the only D-I teams on the schedule that DeCuire has never coached against.

MONTANA NOTES

The Griz have 10 newcomers this year with seven transfers and three true freshmen. They do return 40 percent of their total starts from last year with Kenyon Aguino and Tyler Thompson back.
Montana starts the season ranks 243rd in KenPom. It's the lowest ranking for the program since DeCuire's first season in 2014-15 when they were ranked 265. The Grizzlies went on to win the Big Sky that year.
Zero players were selected to the Preseason All-Big Sky Conference team this year. It's just the second time since the honor was created in 2015-16 that Montana has not had a Preseason All-Conference player on the roster. The other instance was in 2021-22.
Montana has at least eight newcomers on the roster for the fifth straight season. They have seven transfers and three true freshman this year, the 2nd largest transfer class in program history.
The Grizzlies return 40 percent of their starts from last season and 33.0 percent of their minutes. The biggest losses will be in points and assists where they return just 27.1% and 20.6% from last season with the departure of Money Williams.
Head coach Travis DeCuire needs just six more wins to reach 250 in his career. He's already the program's leader in wins and would be just the second Big Sky head coach to ever reach the mark.

UP NEXT
Montana will have a quick turnaround before its home opener on Wednesday. The Grizzlies travel back to Missoula to face off with Salish Kootenai. It's the second straight season the two have met with Montana winning

SCOUTING OREGON

It will be a new look for Oregon in 2026-27 as longtime head coach Dana Altman retired just weeks before the start of the season. Altman had coached Oregon for 16 seasons.
Toby Stubblefield, a longtime assistant under Altman, will serve as the interim head coach this year. Stubblefield has a 30-66 record as a head coach with one season at New Mexico State and most recently three years at Depaul from 2021-24.
The Ducks have 11 newcomers on their roster this year. They brought in nine transfers with D-I experience and two freshmen.
Oregon's leading scorer from last year, Nate Bittle, is now a member of the Toronto Raptors. They also lost leading minutes and assist man Jackson Shelstad and leading rebounder Kwame Evans Jr.
Just two contributors return from last year's team, Sean Stewart, the only returning starter, and Wei Lin.
Last year, the Ducks went 12-20 overall and 5-15 in Big 10 play. It was the worst record of Altman's Oregon career and his only losing season in Eugene.
The Ducks added five-star prospect Tajh Ariza, the son of former NBA star Trevor Ariza, from Link Academy in Los Angeles.
The Ducks also added transfers from schools like USC, Kentucky, Arizona, San Francisco, Alabama, Boise State, and San Diego State.

SERIES HISTORY VS. THE DUCKS
Montana is 4-26 all-time against Oregon. This is the 21^st meeting in Eugene with the Ducks holding an 18-2 advantage on their home floor.

Oregon has been one of the more common non-conference opponents in the DeCuire era for Montana. This will be his 6^th matchup against Oregon. North Dakota State (7) is the only opponent from outside of the Big Sky that DeCuire has played against more often.

The Grizzlies have lost five straight in the series with the last win coming in Eugene in 2009, a 68-55 result.

DeCUIRE IN NOVEMBER
Coach DeCuire is 34-41 overall in the month of November as Montana's head coach. The results have varied greatly depending on the location of the game. DeCuire is 27-6 at home in the first month of the season, but just 3-31 in true road games during the month.

Last season, Montana won 102-93 at UNLV on Nov. 11. The win snapped a 21-game road losing streak in the month of November as Montana has typically played against Power 4 schools during the early stages of the season.

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Players Mentioned

Kenyon Aguino

Tyler Thompson

Money Williams

University of Montana Athletics

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