Almost one year ago to the night when Montana relied on a pair of freshmen down the stretch of a dramatic game against a Mountain West Conference opponent, the Griz again found themselves benefiting from the play of two first-year players versus a team from the very same league.
Only this time — 364 days later — Montana, and not its border rival, was left wondering what happened to its late-game lead in a 73-72 loss Monday night at Dahlberg Arena.
Wyoming erased Montana’s nine-point advantage over the final 9:59 to keep the Grizzlies winless on the verge of a long road trip that begins Wednesday and lasts until December 3. Strangely, the loss was reminiscent of Montana’s win over Boise State to open last season when its comeback was sparked by then-freshmen Bobby Moorehead and Michael Oguine.
Monday, in front of 3,318 fans, true freshman guard Sayeed Pridgett scored a game-high 20 points and redshirt freshman Jared Samuelson added 15 more in front of his mother and grandfather.
Montana sophomore Bobby Moorehead/ UM Sports information
“That’s why we recruited Jared,” Said DeCuire as Montana dropped to 0-2. “We knew he would put the ball in the basket. He just needs to get some experience and learn to do it consistently — he’s a freshman. Sayeed, we knew that he was a steal talent-wise and he scored when the lights came on and he did that.”
Yet the effort is overshadowed by an 0-2 start. Wyoming Jason’s McManamen scored nine points in a four-minute stretch the Cowboys used to flip an eight-point deficit into a one-point advantage at 65-64 with 5:33 to go.
The game, which featured 12 lead changes and 13 ties, see-sawed back and forth from there. Montana got its points on a free-throw and back-to-back buckets on contested drives from Ahmaad Rorie, who finished with 10 on a 3-for-11 night. Those five points were balanced by the four points Alan Hemdon scored for Wyoming to even it at 69.
Justin James, a lanky sophomore wing who did battle with Pridgett for a portion of the night, drove to the hoop against Mario Dunn to put the Pokes up two. Dunn responded with a banked runner to produced the 13th and final tie. It was broken almost two minutes later when James toed the line for his 18th and 19th points of the night.
Montana set up a play for Rorie between James’ free throws and the Oregon transfer drove the lane drawing the 50th personal foul call of the night. He missed the first, made the second and then forced a turnover on the inbounds to give Montana the ball back.
Again Montana looked to Rorie, but Wyoming disrupted the play, forcing the ball into Walter Wright’s hands with the clock winding down. Wright, who sat all but those final seconds of the second half after a three-turnover, three-personal foul first half, got the rim, but rejected on a physical play at the rim.
DeCuire relied heavily on lineup of Fabijan Krslovic, Moorehead, Pridgett, Rorie and Samuelson in the second half. It held limited Wyoming to just three field goals in its first 17 attempts as the Griz built it lead. But eventually the lineup fatigued.
“You can’t play five guys for 20 minutes,” DeCuire said. “You have to rotate your guys when they get tired.”
It was to that point that Montana got a lot of its offense from some of the team’s younger members. Pridgett, a highly rated recruit out of the Bay Area, scored seven points in a short spurt in the first with a pair of free throws, a high-arcing three and a floater in the lane. He later split the paint for a giant one-handed slam teammates and coaches have grown accustom to in his six months in Missoula.
Samuelson became a factor in the second-half, scoring 13 of his 15. A Griz legacy who was DeCuire’s first commit as head coach, the versatile 6-foot-8 forward aptly read his options on certain actions and finished at the rim. There was one time on the far post that that Samuelson faked over his right shoulder and then turned back to the left for a hook.
During a five-minute span in the second half, Samuelson and Pridgett teamed up to score 10 straight points, turning Wyoming’s two-point lead into a five-point Griz advantage. Samuelson had six, including a dunk when he dove off a screen and Pridgett threaded a pass down the lane on his number 33, the same number his dad, Shaun, wore in the early 90s.
“We’ve got some growing up to do,” DeCuire said. “We’ve got a young group out there and we’re relying on some young faces to makes some big grown-man plays. They made some tonight so I’m happy with their effort.”
