The West Coast road trip in the Big Sky Conference brings the NBA scouts to the gyms when Montana State star Tyler Hall and the Bobcats come to Portland or Sacramento.
On Saturday at the Nest, Justin Strings looked like the future pro.
The Sac State senior poured in bucket after bucket and his Hornet teammates followed suit. Strings hit 14 field goals and scored 31 points, Sac State shot 59 percent and the hosts buried Montana State 87-68 on Saturday night in front of 702.
The win is Sac State’s second league victory, paired with an 80-75 win over Portland State in Sacramento to bookend three straight losses during one of the Big Sky’s toughest opening stretches. Strings scored a career-high 34 points and made 16 consecutive field goals in the win over PSU. Sac moved to 5-13 overall, including 5-2 at The Nest. Sac’s three league losses have come to Idaho (69-68), Eastern Washington (82-67) and Montana (78-66).
The loss drops Montana State to 0-2 on the PSU-Sac road swing after Thursday’s 93-74 loss at Portland State. After its first 4-0 start in league play in 13 years, MSU fell to 4-2 in Big Sky competition, 11-8 overall.
Montana State junior Benson Osayande
MSU owned a +16 rebounding margin in a 76-64 win over Northern Colorado and a 42-29 advantage on the glass in a 79-68 win over North Dakota last weekend. Sac grabbed 21 rebounds in the second half to MSU’s 10 and 35 to Montana State’s 25 overall, one key factor MSU head coach Brian Fish pointed to. Fish also referenced Sac’s 50 points in the paint as a detriment in his team’s second straight loss.
“We have got to get better defensively,” Fish said in an interview with the Jay Sanderson and the Bobcat Radio Network.
Strings had his way all evening. The Bobcats allowed an 11-2 run to the Vikings on Thursday and never recovered. MSU shot out of the gates at Sacramento, building a 9-2 lead as Hall scored six early points. Then Strings started heating up.
The 6-foot-7 stretch forward with impossibly long arms hit his first jump shot, converted an old-fashioned 3-point play and hit another pull-up jump shot for seven of Sac’s 11 points during an 11-2 run to take a 13-11 lead six minutes in.
Strings continued to pour it on, scoring 18 total points on an array of moves, dunks and jump shots before halftime as Sac took a 41-40 lead to the break. Strings buried his second 3-pointer less than a minute into the second half to give the Hornets a 44-40 lead. Montana State would cut the lead to 48-47 with 16:12 left on a Devonte Klines layup before Sac State pulled away for good.
Strings hit 6-of-11 shots after halftime and 14-of-24 shots overall. His leaning jumper shot from 16 feet gave Sac a 72-58 lead with 7:35 left. His tip-in stretched the lead to 16 and his layup with 2:48 left pushed the advantage to 82-62.
“That one didn’t hurt us; it was the second-chance points, the 50-points in the paint,” Fish said. “That wouldn’t hurt us but (forward Josh) Patton went for 18, (point guard) Izayah Mauriohooho-Le’afa scored 14 points, (reserve post) Calvin Martin had 13. It was the other guys. We’ve got to be able to guard, got to be able to rebound. They had 23 assists. We had key turnovers at key times but mostly we got whipped on the boards.”
Montana State junior Tyler Hall/ by Brooks Nuanez
Mauriohooho-Le’afa hit his second 3-pointer of the night to give Sac an 85-62 lead with 1:40 left, the biggest lead of the night for the hosts. He finished with 10 of Sac’s 23 assists. The Hornets made 19-of-32 field goals after halftime and 36 of its 61 shots overall.
Hall, who entered the game averaging 26.6 points per game in conference play, including 28 and 25 against UNC and UND, respectively. He scored 11 points in the first six minutes of the game, then scored MSU’s first five points of the second half. The 6-foot-5 junior went nearly 13 mintues without a bucket yet finished with his 43rd 20-point performance in 81 games as a Bobcat. Hall hit two of MSU’s four 3-pointers (in 15 attempts) and Hall hit 6-of-13 shots overall.
Benson Osasayande, a seldom-used senior from Elk Grove right outside Sacramento, scored 10 points in 11 minutes off the bench. Junior Sam Neumann had seven points in the paint as MSU built an early 29-25 lead but did not score thereafter. Sophmore point guard scored 10 points but shot 1-of-5 from behind the arc. MSU had just 12 assists.
MSU shot 39.3 percent after halftime and 43.6 percent overall.
The Bobcats have played four of its six Big Sky games on the road. MSU returns home Saturday for a showdown with their red-hot rival. Montana comes to Bozeman looking for redemption following last season’s 78-69 loss to the Bobcats. Hall scored 37 points on 13 shots in front of the first sellout crowd at Brick Breeden Fieldhouse since 2004. UM enters Saturday’s game having won eight of nine, including six straight to sit alone atop the Big Sky.
“We got a lot of work to do,” Fish said. “We’ve got to get back to moving the ball. We were winning games by rebounding and now we’ve gotten away from that. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
