Griz head back to Bay Area to face San Francisco - University of Montana Athletics

MONTANA (1-1) at SAN FRANCISCO (2-0)
Nov. 10 / 8:00 p.m. (MT) / Watch / Live Stats

PREVIEW
The Montana men's basketball teams makes a familiar trip this week as they head to the Bay Area to play at San Francisco on Tuesday night. It's the second time the Grizzlies will play inside the War Memorial at the Sobrato Center in the last three seasons.

No strangers to the region, Montana will be playing in the Bay Area for the fourth straight season. They played at San Jose State in 2023-24 and at Stanford last year.

It will be a homecoming for several of Montana's players as seven members of the 2026-27 roster hail from the Golden State. Tyler Thompson (Fairfield) and Courtney Anderson Jr. (Vallejo) will be back in the Bay Area.

The Grizzlies are coming off a dominant 105-40 win over Salish Kootenai in the home opener. Montana improved to 12-1 in home openers under Head Coach Travis DeCuire. They opened the season on Nov. 2 with an 87-69 loss at Oregon.

The new-look Montana team is finding chemistry together in the early stages of the season, which has been an encouraging sign for DeCuire. Montana is averaging 22.5 assists per game through two contests to rank 24^th in the NCAA after one week.

There is a new balance to Montana's scoring attack, led by the backcourt of Jalen Brown and Jordan Clark. The two each scored 19 points at Oregon, although Brown missed the Salish Kootenai game and Clark played limited minutes with Montana up big all game.

Five Grizzlies are averaging double figures scoring through the first two games led by Brown at 19.0. Freshman Semaj Carter, who started in place of Brown on Wednesday, is averaging 13.0 points per game and is 7-of-12 (.583) from 3-point range.

Noah Bendinger led the team with 22 points against Salish Kootenai, going 9-of-11 from the floor. Clayton Mpiana has been a difference maker down low for DeCuire with seven rebounds in each of the first two games of the year.

Montana has just one all-time win against the legendary San Francisco program, coming back in 2015 in Missoula. This is the fourth time that the Griz and Dons have met while DeCuire roamed the sidelines for Montana.

November has been a tricky month for DeCuire-led teams on the road as it is typically when Montana plays its buy games. The Grizzlies are just 3-31 away from Missoula in the first month of the season.

They will look to hand San Francisco its first loss of the season as the Dons opened up with home wins over Radford and North Dakota State. The Dons were picked third in the West Coast Conference Preseason Poll.

This is the midway point of a five-game homestand for San Francisco to open up the season. They will host Portland State later in the week and Louisiana on Nov. 18.

The game will be streamed on ESPN+ with the notable duo of Barry Tompkins and Dan Belloumini on the call. The "Voice of the Griz" Riley Corcoran will be on hand for the radio call, which can be heard on KGVO and the Varsity Network App.

BACK IN THE BAY AREA
Montana has a strong connection to the Bay Area and the state of California. Nearly half of Montana's roster is from California with seven players hailing from the Golden State. The Grizzlies have two players from the Bay Area in Tyler Thompson (Fairfield) and Courtney Anderson Jr. (Vallejo).

Jalen Brown (Salinas) and Garret Dutro (Auburn) will have family in driving distance to the game with three other Grizzlies from Southern California.

Staff members Mikey Eggleton and Brian Morgan are also originally from the Bay Area, while DeCuire coached at Cal in Berkley for six seasons.

DeCUIRE CLOSING IN ON DURHAM
Montana head coach has 245 career wins at Montana. He is just one win away from tying Montana State's Mick Durham for the second most wins by a Big Sky Conference coach in the league's history.

Durham won 246 games in 16 seasons from 1990-2006 in Bozeman.

Weber State's Randy Rahe is the league's all-time winningest coach with 316 victories in 16 seasons in Ogden.

GRIZ VS. THE WCC
Montana is 39-43 all-time against teams from the West Coast Conference dating back to 1971. Since DeCuire took over the program in 2014, Montana has gone 2-6 against the WCC. The wins were both at home as they beat San Francisco in 2015 and Pepperdine in 2016. They are 0-6 inside WCC gyms under DeCuire.

SCOUTING SAN FRANCISCO (2-0)

The Dons have won two straight games to open the season. They begin the year with a five-game homestand that they reach the midway point of on Tuesday.
Last year, San Francisco went 17-16 and 8-10 in WCC play. They were eliminated by Oregon State in the quarterfinals of the WCC Tournament. USF has had a winning record in five straight seasons.
Head coach Chris Gerlufsen is in his 5^th season at USF with an 87-51 overall record.
San Francisco was picked to finish 3^rd in the WCC's Preseason Coaches' Poll.
Ndewedo Newbury was named Preseason All-WCC. He missed the entirety of the 2025-26 season with an injury. He averaged 8.4 points and 4.3 rebounds for the Dons in 2024-25, but played just 11 games because of an injury.
The Dons have 14 newcomers, tied for the most by any D-I team in the country. Newbury and Aidan Braccia are the only returning players.
Half of San Francisco's roster is international with eight players hailing from overseas.
Ben Oosterbaan leads the Dons in minutes (33.0) and scoring (16.0 PPG). Oosterbaan, a St. Thomas transfer, is also averaging 5.5 rebounds per game.
Five players are averaging double figures for the Dons, including four of their starters.

SERIES HISTORY VS. THE DONS
This is the 10^th all-time meeting between Montana and San Francisco. The Dons lead the series 8-1 all-time and are currently on a one-game winning steak in the series. San Francisco won 71-67 in 2024.

Montana's only win in the series was an 82-50 victory on Dec. 4, 2015.

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Players Mentioned

Courtney Anderson Jr.

Noah Bendinger

Jalen Brown

Semaj Carter

Jordan Clark

Garret Dutro

Clayton Mpiana

Tyler Thompson

University of Montana Athletics