BOZEMAN — Montana State scorched the nets in Cedar City. At 7,000 feet above sea level in Flagstaff, the Bobcats went cold.
For the first time in the Brian Fish era, MSU’s men’s basketball team completed a road sweep despite enduring a dismal shooting performance Saturday night at Northern Arizona. Despite shooting just 30 percent and seeing its starting backcourt of junior Tyler Hall and sophomore Harald Frey finish 2-of-18 from beyond the arc, Montana State gutted out an overtime win over Northern Arizona.
The extra time victory came less than 48 hours after MSU put up 104 points in a five-point win at Southern Utah. The gritty effort also gave the Bobcats its first road sweep to open Big Sky Conference play since the 2004-2005 season.
“There was definitely some bright spots and that comes with coming together as one and still being verbal on defense and everybody flying around and still having a lot of energy even when our shots wasn’t falling.,” MSU junior forward Keljin Blevins said following Tuesday’s practice. “That’s been our problem with the couple games we have right before conference. Shots wasn’t falling and we weren’t continuing to play hard on defense and that changed at Northern Arizona and we came up with a win.”
The sweep to begin the 18-game Big Sky slate came on the heels of MSU’s first winning non-conference record (7-6) since the 2007-2008 season. During the non-league, MSU won the Cancun Challenge, its first tournament victory since 2002. MSU fourth-year head coach Brian Fish sees progress in his program but refuses to let his team rest on their early successes.
“You start league play and it’s an 18-lap race and each game is one lap around the track,” Fish said during his weekly press conference on Tuesday. “It’s left side of the column, right side of the column and to get two wins is good. But by no means is it that big a deal whether you start 0-2 or 2-0 because there’s so many games left. It’s good because it gives the guys energy.”
MSU’s start has come despite Hall, a first-team All-Big Sky pick as a sophomore last season and the league’s preseason MVP, battling a bum ankle and an inconsistent shooting stroke.
The ankle ailment hit a peak in MSU’s 75-48 loss at Central Michigan. The Lou Henson Award candidate went scoreless for the first time as a Bobcat in 11 minutes of action. Hall experienced the worst shooting night of his career in Montana State’s non-conference finale later in December at Omaha, converting just two of his 19 shot attempts, both 3-pointers among 13 attempts from deep.
Against Southern Utah, Hall saw the pendulum swing in the other direction. The 6-foot-5 shooting guard hit eight 3-pointers to break Danny Sprinkle’s all-time MSU record for triples in a career (263, Hall has 268 and counting) on the way to a 36-point night.
“Three-point shooters are like field goal kickers in football,” Fish said in an interview with ESPN Missoula last week. “He got off balance with his ankle injury and it caused his Achilles to swell and he started landing on one foot and he didn’t have his balance. He couldn’t get by people so he couldn’t get to the line. It was like 10 percent of 10 things. It wasn’t one bigger than the other.”
The 30-point effort marked the 13th of Hall’s already decorated Bobcat career. It was also accompanied by the first 30-point effort of Frey’s young career, marking the first time since 1971 two Bobcats scored 30 points in the same game.
Frey hit 9-of-15 shots from the floor, including four of his seven 3-point tries. Last season’s Big Sky Freshman of the Year also drilled 8-of-11 free throws and chipped in six assists.
Two nights later, Hall and Frey couldn’t buy buckets. Hall finished 1-of-12 from deep and 4-of-18 overall, Frey missed his first 12 shots and the Bobcats found themselves down 15 points in the first half. But a solid defensive effort and a breakout performance by Blevins helped MSU force overtime.
In extra time, Frey endured some contact on the perimeter before casting a three that swished home to give Montana State a two-possession lead late. He finished 1-of-13 for seven points yet Fish still called it the best game of his international point guard’s career.
“It was Harry’s best game of his career to not make a shot the entire game and to hit a game-winner,” Fish said. “How many kids these days at this age are willing to fight that and stay with it when the shots are not going in? I’m really proud of those guys because we won a game when we only shot 30 percent and they showed a lot of toughness.”
Fish said he ideally would like Frey to shoot 12 to 15 times a game. The native of Oslo, Norway shot 28 times in two games last weekend, raising his average to 10.5 attempts per game.
“He’s been more aggressive and staying in that fight,” Fish said. “Even though the other night, he didn’t hit a bunch of shots, he hit a shot that separated the game and won it for us. I’m not sure he’d have done that two or three weeks ago so it’s a big step in the right direction. It’s not easy to continue to shoot when the ball isn’t’ going through the hoop. It wasn’t going but he still stayed with it and was fantastic.”
NAU threw a variety of defensive looks at the visitors on Saturday evening. The one mismatch MSU was able to find came in the form of Blevins. The 6-foot-6 four-man with a diverse skill set consistently took advantage of taller yet slower NAU defenders in getting to the rim at will. He finished with a career-high 26 points.
“They had a 6-9 four-man on me that I felt like I was a little quicker then him so every opportunity I got, I was attacking him,” Blevins said. “I kept getting to the rim and I was 9-for-9 from the free throw line so I felt that was a big key for us, me being aggressive and noticing who I had guarding me and continuing to attack.”
Now Montana State prepares for a red-hot Northern Colorado team that has won 11 of its first 15, including an impressive sweep of Eastern Washington (88-75) and preseason favorite Idaho (81-77) in Greeley last weekend.
The continued standout play of All-Big Sky junior point guard Jordan Davis (has been bolstered by return of All-Big Sky wing Anthony Johnson, a fifth-year senior who redshirted last season because of UNC’s postseason ineligility. Tanner Morgan did the exact same thing and has returned to lead the Bears in rebounding.
The infusion provided by Andre Spight has also been significant. The former Arizona State transfer scored 21 points against EWU and 28 more against Idaho. He leads the Bears in scoring at 18.8 points per game. He is making 3.1 3-pointers a game, second in the league to only Hall’s 3.6 per outing.
“They are playing with extreme confidence, great guards, scoring the ball at will, have some big road wins,” Fish said. “They didn’t win at UNLV the other night before Christmas but they give them a really good run.”
“Any team that wins 11 games at this point are playing well defensively the majority of the time. They are certainly doing that. They are playing with energy. They are playing the right way. They know the pecking order on who to get shots for.
“I think they are one of the top teams in the league. I’m very impressed with what they’ve done. They are playing with a purpose.”
Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
