Cold shooting sinks Griz in Greeley

Monday, March 2

Greeley, Colo.

6:00 PM

Montana

16-15,10-8Big Sky

Northern Colorado

20-11,10-8Big Sky

Montana

Northern Colo.

Photo by: Jackson Wagner

3/2/2026 10:07:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

By: Montana Sports Information

Montana closed out the regular season on Monday night in Greeley, Colo. and the signs of fatigue showed for a Grizzly team playing its third game in five days. The offense went cold for Montana in an 85-57 loss to the Bears.

The Grizzlies and Bears finish tied in the league standings at 10-8 in Big Sky play and will face each other again in the quarterfinals of the Big Sky Tournament in Boise next week.

The two teams both struggled from the field in the first half, shooting under 33 percent. The game was close at the break with Northern Colorado holding on to a 27-23 lead. The Grizzlies couldn't find their stroke in the second half while the Bears got hot to pull away for the win.

Montana started out with an early lead behind Kenyon Aguino's hot start. The freshman had the first four points of the game and the Griz held an early 7-3 lead. Aguino finished the night with 10 points on 50 percent shooting.

"Kenyon got off to a good start, 4-for-6 in the first half, but no one else shot for percentage and we never really could get the paint established," DeCuire said. "They did a good job of not letting the guards get in, which meant we needed to make some open shots and we never really did that."

The Bears responded with a 7-0 run to take the lead for good in the regular season finale. Northern Colorado started to pull away with a 9-0 run early in the second half to take the first double-digit lead of the game with 15:21 to play.

They went on an extended 39-12 run behind a 15-of-18 shooting stretch that included five straight makes from the three-point line. The Bears shot 66.7 percent in the second half to pull away for the win.

It was a tale of two halves as Montana held the Bears to just 11-of-34 (.324) from the field and just 3-of-18 (.167) from three-point range.

"We defended as well as we have all year in the first half, 32 percent shooting for them, we just couldn't get shots to go in," DeCuire said. "We had open shots, possessions where we had advantages, but we just didn't come out with two or three points. Then the defense didn't come out of the locker room."

It was the third game in five days for Montana, who beat the regular season champion Portland State on Saturday in the final game at home for the year. They couldn't get over the hump in Greeley.

"There might have been some emotional wear, but I just feel that we weren't tough enough today," DeCuire said. "We have to be more prepared for tough battles in these situations. They were playing for seeding, we didn't look like we were."

Money Williams led Montana with 17 points on 7-of-12 shooting and 6 rebounds. Aguino was the only other Grizzly in double figures with 10 points and he matched Williams with a co-team high 6 rebounds.

It's just the second time this year that Montana has been held under 60 points and only the third time they've been under 40 percent from the field.

"We just have to be clean mentally. We made quite a few mistakes and offensively we weren't crisp to start the first half," DeCuire said. "We have to be clean and a lot of that is mental. We will tighten up and be ready for Boise."

Montana will face off with Northern Colorado again next Monday in the quarterfinals of the Big Sky Tournament. Portland State won the regular season title with a win over Weber State on Monday.

Montana State will be the No. 2 seed at the Big Sky Tournament and Eastern Washington the 3-seed. Montana, Weber State, and Northern Colorado all finished tied for 4^th place. The Grizzlies won the tiebreaker by way of a sweep of the regular season champion Vikings.

Northern Colorado split the season series with PSU while Weber State was swept, leading to the Bears earning the 5-seed and the Wildcats at the 6-seed.

Montana and Northern Colorado split the regular season series. The Grizzlies won 88-79 on Jan. 3 in Missoula while the Bears picked up the win on Monday.

"We probably had our best game on both sides of the ball in conference the first time we played them, we were off to a great start defensively in this game, so if you look at three halves out of the four defensively we were great," DeCuire said. "If the posts don't score down low and our three-point shooters don't make shots, it's going to be hard to generate offense, but we just have to make shots."