Preview: After Tough Loss, @UNCO_MBB Tries to Rebound at @MontanaGrizBB

Saturday, January 6

Missoula, Mont.

7 pm

University of Northern Colorado

University of Montana

Tickets

1/5/2018 1:34:00 PM | Men's Basketball

UNC Game Notes at Montana

By: Kurt Maddox, UNCBears.com

Greeley, Colo.—Playing on the road can be a tough challenge for any team and even good teams will suffer a loss. The Northern Colorado men fell to Montana State, 76-64 and now are third in the Big Sky Conference with a 2-1 record. UNC looks to bounce back as it travels northwest to play Montana in Missoula Saturday evening.

Game time is scheduled for 7 pm at Dahlberg Arena in Missoula. Pluto TV is the home for Big Sky basketball and you can catch this matchup on channel 237. You can follow live on UNCBears.com and listen in to the voice of the Bears, Troy Coverdale, on 1310 KFKA.

Opening Tip
These two squads first met in 1970 when the Grizzlies handed the Bears a 72-63 loss in Missoula. UM is ahead in the all-time series 20-9 and won the two teams' last matchup 89-68 at Montana. UNC had a glitch in the system and will fight hard to fix it in time for the big matchup against the Grizzlies so they can get their first win of the 2018 calendar year.

Record-Book Watch
In the loss, Jordan Davis passed Kirk Archibeque (2003-08) and Dennis Colson (1965-68) to move into 14th all-time points in UNC history. JD now only needs 20 points to pass Tate Unruh (2009-2014) for 13th in the record books. At this pace, the Las Vegas native could finish at fifth on the list with one season remaining.

Last Time Out
Andre Spight and Jordan Davis tried to help Northern Colorado earn a comeback victory against on Thursday night at Montana State, but were unable to as the Bears fell 76-64. The two leading scorers put up 31 of the 64 points for UNC but cold shooting at the end of the game plus a 28-point effort by Montana State star Tyler Hall gave the Bears their first loss in the young conference season.

Last Time vs Montana
The Griz led wire-to-wire in the contest, jumping out to an 18-5 lead over the Bears just five minutes into the game and never looked back. UNC's deficit built to as many as 22 points over the first half and the Bears went into the intermission down 50-30. Montana used a barrage of three-balls throughout the contest to put Northern Colorado into a hole they could not climb out of.

The Griz connected on 15-of-31 (48%) from downtown, scoring 45 of their 89 points beyond the perimeter. UNC, on the other hand, was held to just four treys on the night, almost five below their season average. Montana grew the advantage to 31 in the second half, before the Bears reeled off a 14-0 run to cut the difference down to 17 with 4:59 remaining in the game.

Northern Colorado wasn't able to sustain its comeback efforts in the last five minutes as UM handed the Bears an 89-68 loss.

Rising in the Polls
Win after win and game after game, the Northern Colorado Bears have been creeping up the Collegeinsider.com MidMajor Top 25 poll. UNC has been receiving votes for a couple of weeks and finally cracked into the top 25 after their performance over the weekend. UNC now sits at 25th in the poll, their first ranking since the 2013-14 season.

The College Insider Mid-Major Poll is made up of teams from the following conferences and 31 total coaches from these conferences vote on the poll: America East, Atlantic Sun, Big Sky, Big South, Big West, Colonial, Horizon, Independents, Ivy, Metro Atlantic, Mid-American, Mid-Eastern, Missouri Valley, Northeast, Ohio Valley, Patriot, Southern, Southland, Southwestern, Summit, Sun Belt, West Coast, Western Athletic.

Bear Tracks

The Bears fell to third in scoring offense in the Big Sky after the 64-point performance. They now average 78.3 points per game which is almost one point behind Southern Utah at 79.1. Portland State is atop the Big Sky by averaging a scorching 91.1 points per contest.
UNC shoots the third best FG percentage (45.5%) and only trails second-place Idaho State by 0.9 percent.
Third seems to be Northern Colorado's place in the conference as they sit in that order for rebounding offense.
Once again, the Bears are third in blocked shots per game. UNC rejects its opponents an average 4.0 times per game. They dropped from second after only swatting away one shot in the loss to Montana State.
Bears' opponents don't get many second chances on average as UNC is second in defensive rebounds. Northern Colorado grabs 28.4 defensive boards and is only .6 rebounds per game behind first-place Idaho. Their defensive rebounding percentage is 75.3% which is, surprise…surprise, third in the conference.
Portland State and Weber State are the only two teams to make more 3s per game than Northern Colorado. The Bears launch and hit 8.8 treys per game. The Wildcats average 8.9 and the Vikings make over 10 treys per game.
Andre Spight is now seventh in scoring for the Big Sky at 18.4 ppg. Jordan Davis is ninth with his 17.2 points per contest.
Tanner Morgan is 10th in rebounds as the redshirt senior pulls down 5.9 boards per game.
Spight puts in almost three 3s per game which is second in the league. The Arizona State transfer is one trey per game behind Tyler Hall of MSU.
Jalen Sanders is third in blocked shots with 1.5 rejections per contest.

Scouting Montana

Now entering the fourth season at his alma mater, Travis DeCuire (67-46 overall and 42-15 in Big Sky) is once again poised to put the Grizzlies back on the road to a 20-win campaign. In his first two seasons as the University of Montana's 27th men's head basketball coach, DeCuire accomplished something no other coach in UM history had: he posted two 20-win seasons.
Montana comes into the matchup 3-0 in the Big Sky and 10-6 overall after an impressive 109-79 drubbing of Big Sky defending champs North Dakota. Ahmaad Rorie and Jamar Akoh each scored 22 points in the win. The Grizzlies shot an astounding 61.0 percent from the field.
Rorie is Montana's leading scorer at 18.6 points per game. He doesn't only shoot the ball as he leads the Griz with assists at 53 for their 16 games (3.3 apg). Michael Oguine puts in 14.2 and Akoh averages 13.1. Akoh is their hot shooter as he is shooting over 54 percent on the season and leads the team in rebounds (6.8 rpg).
UM comes in third in scoring defense for the Big Sky and only give up 68.5 points per contest and they score 76.6 per game.
The Grizzlies hold their opponents to 42 percent shooting from the field and that is under the Bears season average of 45.5 percent.
Montana allows its foes to shoot 36 percent from three-point land, so UNC have an opportunity to capitalize on that as the Bears shot 32.7 percent.
The Griz outrebounds the team on the other bench by 4.2 per game which is second in the Big Sky.
This game might involve a lot of rejections as the Grizzlies average 4.2 per game and the Bears block four a game.
Montana's turnover margin is second in the Big Sky at +4.1.
When the Griz win, they score above 70 points. All but one win this season for Montana was when they scored 70 points or more.

What's Ahead

The Bears are back home for a three-game stretch starting January 11th as the Weber State Wildcats come to town for a 7 pm tilt in Bank of Colorado Arena. Idaho State visits the 13th at 2 pm and the homestand concludes on the 20th with the Energy Proud Showdown as North Dakota makes its final trip to Greeley as a member of the Big Sky.

Tickets are available at UNCBears.com, at the UNC Box Office M-F from Noon-5pm and then 10am-5pm starting January 8th or at 970.351.1679 during business hours.