Travis DeCuire has never shied away from playing traditional basketball powerhouses. Until Monday night, DeCuire’s Montana’s men’s basketball team has been close against Power 5 teams but never victorious.
On Monday in Pittsburgh behind a dynamite performance from Michael Oguine, the Griz broke through. In his 100th game as the head coach at his alma mater, DeCuire coached Montana to an 83-78 overtime victory over the perennially powerful Panthers of Pitt.
The victory marks Montana’s first over a Power 5 conference opponent since UM beat Oregon State in 2010. The win is also Montana’s first over a school from the Atlantic Coast Conference since 1966.
“We say every day is a good day to be the Griz, but this one is a little more special,” DeCuire told Riley Corcoran on KGVO Radio following the victory to move his team to 2-0 this season. “It feels good. Our guys fought. They competed. I put that on the board. We talked about mental and physical toughness. We made mistakes down the stretch and I’d like to have a timeout or two back but what we did do was we fought to the end.
“It was time for us to get over the hump on some of these. We gave some away — Gonzaga (a 61-58 loss two seasons ago) — let them slip away. Our guys weren’t going to let that happen tonight.”
Oguine put forth one of his best performances as a Griz. His back-to-back 3-pointers late in regulation gave UM a 71-69 lead. He finished with 29 points, six rebounds and five assists in 44 minutes.
“Some guys play better mad and some guys, if they blow a top, you have go get them out and settle them down,” DeCuire said. “Mike is one of those guys that when he’s mad, he’s better. He takes practice over when he gets mad. He came into this game emotional because he had some things that he was upset with about Pitt. Kids, they want to be recruited at the highest level and sometimes, you might think you have an opportunity and it doesn’t work out. He had something to prove so he was a man on a mission.”
Montana head coach Travis DeCuire/ by Brooks Nuanez
After Oguine’s 3-pointer with 2:16 to play in regulation, Montana was called for a 10-second violation because of a miscommunication between Oguine and Rorie. Pitt tied the game at 71 on the next possession. With the score tied at 73, Oguine got a good look at a step-back 3-pointer at the buzzer but the shot rimmed out.
“The 10-second count got him even more upset and that’s when he buckled down defensively,” DeCuire said. “He did some things that didn’t show up on the stat sheet. He took (Pitt star guard Marcus) Carr completely out of the game (holding him to 1-of-9 shooting). I know one thing about Mike: if he feels like it’s time to put everyone on his back, he’s going to get it done.”
The Griz used a short bench as junior point guard Ahmaad Rorie played 44 minutes, junior forward Bobby Moorehead played 42 minutes, senior post Fabijan Krslovic played 35 minutes and sophomore swingman Sayeed Pridgett played 33. Rorie finished with 18 points and three assists, Moorehead scored 14 points and grabbed nine rebounds while Pridgett finished with 12 points and eight rebounds.
“Sayeed played the post earlier in his life so he’s accustomed to guarding bigger guys and keeping them out of the paint,” DeCuire said. “Bob has length and is physical and get away with it. I knew that if we went to that lineup, we could spread the floor, which allows Ahmaad and Mike to do what they do.”
Rorie scored six points in overtime, including UM’s first two buckets in the extra period. Rorie and Krslovic combined for four of Montana’s seven steals, including two thefts late in regulation that helped lead to layups as UM erased a seven-point deficit to sent the game to extra time.
“Once we figured out their flow and their offense, we figured out some pressure areas where Mike could get away with getting in there and not pay a price with penetration,” DeCuire said. “We also figured out that we could fight some turns and not get backdoored. That’s where some of those steals came from. They figured out when we were hedging the ball screen, they were starting to slip out and take advantage of it so when we started switching, by the time they figured out what we were doing, we stole two or three.”
Montana sophomore Ahmaad Rorie/ contributed
Montana continues in the Legends Classic Tournament with a game in University Park, Pennsylvania against Penn State on Wednesday. UM finishes the tournament with a game against Oral Roberts on November 20 and a matchup against either UC Santa Barbara or Pepperdine on November 21. Both games are in Malibu, California.
“You’d like to say you’ve arrived but it’s a long season and we have a long way to go,” DeCuire said. “It won’t mean anything if we don’t take care of business over the next few months. We have to continue to grow.
“What we do over these next 15 to 20 games will make this one feel a lot better. For us, it’s a partial arrival because we didn’t know how to finish off Cal, we didn’t know how to finish off Gonzaga my first and second year. As a group, we had to grow up.”
DeCuire interview provided by Nic Hallisey of Montana Sports Information from DeCuire’s post-game interview with the Voice of the Griz Riley Corcoran. Photos attributed. All Rights Reserved.
