THE MATCHUP
Montana State dropped a Martin Luther King Day game at last-place Idaho just five days before playing at rival Montana in what amounted to MSU’s third game in five days. The defending Big Sky Conference champion Bobcats bounced back, winning in Missoula for the first time since 2010 to snap an 11-game losing streak at Dahlberg Arena.
Saturday, Montana State played a Sac State team coming off a 67-48 drubbing of the Grizzlies. MSU was in search of a third straight road victory and an eighth conference win overall.
THE RESULT
With reigning Big Sky MVP Jubrile Belo saddled with foul trouble and coming off a torn up hand suffered Thursday in a win at Portland State, the Bobcats turned to star junior RaeQuan Battle. The former Washington transfer hit 10 free throws in the game’s final five minutes, including eight in the final 2:20 and four in the final 11 seconds to lift MSU to a 72-65 win over the Hornets.
MSU is now 8-2 in Big Sky Conference play, 15-8 overall. Sacramento State falls to 5-4 in league play.
THE STANDOUTS
Battle took and made difficult shots all night, nailing a few pull-ups along the baseline, hitting a few shots in the lane, drilling a pair of 3-pointers and hitting all 12 of his free throw attempts on the way to a career-high 32 points. His previous top mark came in a 30-point effort at North Dakota. He also scored 29 points in a win over Southern Utah earlier this year.
Belo played just 18 minutes and finished with six points compared to four fouls and three turnovers. In his place, Great Osobor stepped up, chipping in 13 points and four rebounds in 27 minutes of action. He was 3-of-4 from the free throw line on a night MSU went 24-of-28 from the charity stripe.
Zack Chappell kept the Hornets in the game late, hitting a lay-up to cut the MSU lead to 62-60 and his third 3-pointer to cut it to 64-63 with 1:58 left. He scored a game-high 19 points.
Callum McRae, a 7-foot-1 behemoth ranks second in the league in rebounding (9.4 per game), finished with 15 points and nine rebounds as Sac State lost for the first time in nine home games.
QUOTABLE
“We made tremendous plays at the end of the game. RaeQuan was awesome offensively. Sam Lecholat played some huge minutes in the second half. Jubrile & Great I thought were tremendous playing against McRae. He’s a giant human being. Not only that, he’s good.
Montana State head coach Danny Sprinkle
“They are so well-coached and they are so tough. Coach (David) Patrick has done a helluva job with it. They are talented and they are tough. A lot of stuff they run, they look like us. They reminded me a lot of our team watching film on them.”
Sprinkle
“This was their first home loss of the year. This is a tough place to play, man. For our guys to do it after some tough travel, I’m really proud of our maturity. Especially with our win over Montana, to go on the road, have two more in a row and travel in this league is not easy so for our guys to come out with some great energy was awesome.”
Sprinkle
“Not even just at the end of the game, but throughout the entire game, when they were making runs and it was tough for us to score, (Battle) was the guy who was going and scoring. He’s hard to guard. I’m glad I don’t have to guard him. He’s a tremendous talent. I’m glad No. 21 was in a Bobcat uniform tonight.”
Sprinkle
WHAT’S NEXT
Montana State hosts Northern Arizona on Thursday night and Northern Colorado on Saturday afternoon, MSU won 69-54 in Flagstaff and rolled 77-56 in Greeley against those two opponents, respectively, earlier this season. NAU beat UNC 83-73 on Saturday.
Sac State hosts first-place Eastern Washington on Thursday. The Eagles beat Weber State 75-71 on Saturday to move to 10-0 in league play.
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