Grizzlies maintain tradition
SALT LAKE CITY – Montana had a double-digit seed, little if anything positive to draw upon from its last NCAA tournament appearance and could barely look eye-to-eye with Nevada’s best player.
None of that mattered. The Grizzlies had 12th-seed magic on their side.
The Grizzlies from the Big Sky Conference carried on the winning tradition of No. 12 seeds in the NCAA tournament by beating fifth-seeded Nevada 87-79 Thursday in the first round of the Minneapolis Regional.
Since 1985, at least one 12th-seeded team has upset a No. 5 seed in the tournament every year except for 1988 and 2000.
And with the poise the Grizzlies showed throughout against Nevada, they treated Montana’s first win in the tournament since 1975 like it was just another regular-season game.
“We’re not a team that goes out and celebrates, hoots and hahs. But there was a lot of emotion in the locker room,” said Kevin Criswell, who scored 18 for Montana.
Nevada has two 7-footers and 6-11 Nick Fazekas, the two-time Western Athletic Conference player of the year.
The Big Sky champion Grizzlies had nobody taller than 6-9. But the decided height advantage wasn’t good for much more than an advantage in rebounding for the Wolf Pack. Montana made up for that with solid shooting, especially from the free-throw line in the second half.
The Wolf Pack said on Wednesday that they hadn’t had a chance to watch much film about Montana and knew little about the Grizzlies.
“I bet they’d go watch film more if they had to do it again,” said Virgil Matthews, who had 20 points and seven assists for Montana.
A year after being overwhelmed early in a first-round loss, the Grizzlies (24-6) returned like NCAA tournament veterans and never trailed against the Wolf Pack (27-6), who moved from the role of underdog to first-round favorite this season.
Andrew Strait, Montana’s second-tallest player at 6-foot-8, had 22 points. He said the Grizzlies, seeded 16th a year ago, were happy to be a 12.
“Obviously, the seeding is based on a lot of different things,” Strait said. “They were a great team, they played in a tough league, they’ve beaten a lot of good teams this year.”
Nevada had won 14 straight, winning the WAC regular season and conference tournament to make it to the NCAA regionals for the third straight year. The Wolf Pack advanced out of the first round each of the past two seasons.
Montana did little to stop Fazekas and Marcelus Kemp – the Wolf Pack’s top-two scorers – but shut down everyone else. Fazekas had 24 points and 12 rebounds and Kemp scored 34. The rest of the Pack scored a combined for 21 points.
A year ago, under first-year coach and former Montana star Larry Krystowiak, the Grizzlies needed 4 minutes to score their first point against Washington and trailed by 19 in the first half.
This time around, the Grizzlies led 40-33 at halftime.