MISSOULA — Timmy Falls caught the Jamar Akoh pass in rhythm and let fly a 3-pointer in a split second. After a month of misses, Falls found nothing but the bottom of the net for the third straight time.
On the next possession, the bold Montana freshman ball faked on the catch, penetrated and whipped a one-handed scoop pass to fellow rookie Karl Nicholas. Before Nicholas could finish at the rim, Falls threw up his tattooed arms to ignite the crowd of 3,106 as he ran down the Dahlberg Arena court.
Rather than rest on his boasting, the intrepid Montana rookie planted himself in the middle of the key and drew a charge.
The sequence cemented Falls’ breakout performance. It also put on display how dangerous Montana might be if head coach Travis DeCuire can play full eight-man rotation. Falls, who entered Tuesday night’s matchup against UC Irvine with 12 points all season, hit all four of his 3-point attempts and scored 14 of Montana’s 30 bench points.
The effort off the pine was a part of a balanced offensive effort that the host Griz paired with a suffocating defensive performance en rout to an 86-68 victory over the Anteaters on Tuesday night.
Montana true freshman Timmy Falls scored a career-high 14 points
“This year, I’ve been struggling a little bit but Trav (DeCuire) kept saying keep being confident in myself so I took that to heart,” Falls said. “Once my first one went in, I knew I was going to have a good night. It feels good to get back to my regular style of play and kind of a boost for my ego, so I’ll take that.”
Junior center Jamar Akoh showed his aggressiveness early against Irvine’s sizeable front line, scoring seven points in the first four minutes and finishing with a career-high 23 points. He also grabbed seven rebounds and stayed out of foul trouble despite battling a rotation of three Irvine posts who all stood 6-foot-9 or taller. UM beat Irvine 30-20 on points in the paint.
Akoh and junior guard Michael Oguine (16 points) picked up the scoring slack with junior Ahmaad Rorie, UM’s leading scorer, shooting 3-of-13 and finishing with eight points. The win moved Montana to 7-4 this season, guaranteeing the Griz will finish the non-conference with a winning record during its non-conference slate regardless of Friday night’s result at Washington. The loss drops Irvine to 4-10.
“I think that’s about as close as you can get to a complete performance, as well as we’ve played in a long time,” DeCuire said. “To go out and be that explosive offensively and have our leading scorer (Rorie) not make a lot of shots and (junior wing) Bobby Moorehead not get into double figures, if you would’ve told me ahead of time that was going to happen, I wouldn’t have believed you. I think it was a sign of growth.”
Falls, a combo guard from Dublin, California, came to Montana after earning East Bay Athletic League MVP at Dublin High. He chose Montana over Weber State and San Jose State, giving him plenty of hype when he joined the Griz. He broke into the rotation right away but struggled to find any offensive flow, missing his first eight 3-point tries and hitting one of his first 10 from deep over the first nine games of his Griz career.
“It’s been a slow start for him but tonight he got it going and you saw a taste of what he can do,” Oguine said of Falls. “He does that at practice all the time. When he’s in rhythm, he makes some crazy passes you can’t believe. When he’s on, it changes our whole team.”
Falls hit five of his six field goal attempts in a season-high 22 minutes off the bench. He entered the game averaging 10.3 minutes per game and he had made just five of his 19 shots. Tuesday, he hit two contested 3-pointers in the first half, then put on a show in the second half, shooting and penetrating like DeCuire knew he could. When he finally checked out with just over two minutes remaining, he got a standing ovation.
“This year, I haven’t really been playing as much as I did tonight but I talked to myself and said, ‘If I keep producing, play good defense, try to score on offense, get my players open, I could have a chance to stay longer on the court,” Falls said. “Yesterday after practice, Coach pulled me aside and said, ‘You need to be the player that we recruited from AAU, high school, be that Timmy Falls.’ I think I took that to heart more and tried to play my best tonight.”
Former Montana head coach Blaine Taylor, left, and current head coach Travis DeCuire, center, remember deceased former Griz legend Delvon Anderson
On a night that saw beloved former head coach Blaine Taylor return to Dahlberg for the first time as a visitor, the Griz swarmed Irvine from the outset. Before the game, Taylor, now an assistant at Irvine, and DeCuire, who was an All-Big Sky point guard under Taylor’s direction in the early 1990s, shared an embrace at mid-court as Montana honored Delvon Anderson. The former Big Sky MVP passed away earlier this year. After the emotional moment, Montana unleashed its vicious high-pressure defense.
The Griz forced two shot clock violations in the first half as the visitors shot just 30 percent, helping UM to a 39-29 halftime lead. After intermission, Montana forced two 10-second violations and three more turnovers in the first five minutes of the second half to double the lead. An 11-0 run pushed the lead to 52-33, then Falls’ 3-pointer to ignite his crowd-pleasing sequence pushed the lead to 20. Montana led by at least 15 for the final 15 minutes of the game.
“We have our game plan, we can execute all we want but if we aren’t playing hard, we aren’t going to see those results,” Oguine said. “We saw a team tonight that was really out of their rhythm. They had a ton of turnovers because of trapping and we sped them up, got them out of their rhythm. It’s effort.”
While Falls paced the bench effort, sophomore Sayeed Pridgett and Nicholas provided strong efforts as well, each scoring eight points. Montana has been excellent defensively to begin games and begin the second half. But when DeCuire has gone to his short bench — those three reserves are the only players playing double-figure minutes — the defensive rotations have not been nearly as crisp, causing the Griz to lose leads. Tuesday, the bench not only scored efficiently but executed defensively as well.
“That’s been the missing link for us is when we’ve subbed, teams have made runs and we don’t score,” DeCuire said. “This was the first time in awhile where we’ve gone to the bench and we’ve made runs. By doing that, I’m not playing guys 38, 37, 36 minutes, which means we are rested for the stretch run at the eight minute mark so we can pull away or sustain what we’ve done.”
Montana junior post Jamar Akoh scored a career-high 23 points Tuesday
Montana wraps up its non-conference schedule Friday night at Washington in Seattle. The Grizzlies sewed up their seventh win on Tuesday, guaranteeing a winning record in their non-conference schedule for the first time since 2011-12 regardless of what happens with the Huskies.
“It’s a sign of growth because three years ago, everyone was wondering why I was scheduling these games,” DeCuire said. “’What are you doing? That’s not how you build confidence and whatever.’ But at some point, we have to get to the point where we win these types of games. We need to beat conference championship-caliber teams.
“These are the type of games that build character and got us to the point we are at right now.”
Photos by Todd Goodrich, Montana Sports Information. All Rights Reserved.
