Big Sky Conference

Griz cap undefeated home record with win over Idaho State

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MISSOULA — Travis DeCuire remembers vividly the last time Montana went undefeated at Dahlberg Arena. Montana’s head coach was a point guard for Blaine Taylor’s Big Sky Conference champion Grizzlies.

Timmy Falls is far too young to remember the last time Montana did not lose a home game. In fact, Falls wasn’t born for seven more years.

Fabijan Krlsovic played his 58th and final game in the Adams Center, receiving a standing from the 4,712 on hand to celebrate Montana’s lone senior on Saturday night in Missoula as the Griz made history.

Michael Oguine’s monster double-double, including 15 rebounds and seven offensive boards helped Montana whip Idaho State on the glass, Falls helped take minutes off star point guard Ahmaad Rorie while shutting down ISU sharpshooter Jared Stutzman and the Grizzlies controlled the action throughout despite a gritty effort from the visitors as UM posted a 75-64 win in Missoula Saturday night.

The victory is Montana’s 14th and final home win in as many performances at Dahlberg, capping the first undefeated home record by a Griz team since 1992. The outright Big Sky champions won 16 of 18 league games and 23 overall to earn the top seed in the Big Sky Tournament in Reno next week.

Montana senior forward Fabijan Krslovic with his parents/by Jason Bacaj

”This is awesome, especially this last night for Fab,” Oguine said. “That’s a great way to end your career as a senior so it was really important to get that win for him. Like he said in his post-game speech, this has everything to do with the crowd every night when we are playing. They mean so much to us so we want to play our best when they are here watching us.”

“This is one I’m going to remember for the rest of my life,” Falls added. “14-0 at home, I wasn’t even born yet. That’s rare. It doesn’t come around often. We are going to embrace it and enjoy it.”

In DeCuire’s junior year at Montana in 1992, the Grizzlies posted a 27-4 record that included 14 home victories. That team won the Big Sky Tournament before earning a No 14 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Those Griz fell to Florida State 78-68 in the first round of the Big Dance.

“This depends on how we finish,” DeCuire said when asked to compare and contrast the two undefeated home slates. “That team went to the NCAA Tournament. We walked away from a tough loss where we thought if we threw the ball in the air again, we would win and we didn’t.

“It’s hard to compare unless we get there. But it feels like a special accomplishment because there has been some special teams in between and for them to not be able to do that is tough, especially since we drew up a tougher home schedule than the norm with the Division I games we played.”

Before the game, Montana honored Krslovic, the only player on the roster not recruited by DeCuire. The native of Sydney, Australia came more than 9,000 miles from home to play for a team because of a connection with former UM assistant Kerry Rupp and former Montana forward Jack Lopez, himself an Aussie.

Montana forward Fabijan Krslovic (20)/by Jason Bacaj

Four years later, Krslovic has started 111 games, played in 126 and been a part of two regular-season Big Sky championships. On Thursday, Krslovic posted his first double-double in more than a year by scoring 15 points and grabbing 11 rebounds in UM’s 75-57 win over Weber State to sew up the first outright time for the Griz since 2013.

“He’s a special player,” DeCuire said. “When you build winning programs, any winning program has guys like that, guys who do the right things on and off the court. He exemplifies what our program stands for. He competes in the classroom (4.0 GPA), he competes in the community and that carries over on to the court. He’s reliable and trustworthy and I’m going to hate to see him leave.

“It’s been a fun ride and hopefully we can get a few more.”

On Saturday, Krlsovic managed just four points and three rebounds in 30 minutes, but his parents Robert and Lidia Krslovic were on hand to see their son receive the adoration of a community before Montana clinched the fifth undefeated home record in school history.

“It’s very bittersweet but I’ve had a lot of good memories on this court,” Krslovic said. “The fans are absolutely spectacular all year. To be able to go undefeated at home, that’s really something special and not a whole lot of people can say that, especially on their senior night.

“There was a lot of attention on me today and that was a bit alarming sometimes, but I know the guys were really happy for me. It was really special.”

The Bengals fought for a full 40 minutes, carrying a bit of momentum and no semblance of fear after scoring 61 points in the second half of a 101-78 win over Montana State in Bozeman. Idaho State drilled 17 3-pointers at Brick Breeden Fieldhouse, including eight by Stutzman in a career-high 33-point outing. On Saturday, DeCuire played Falls on Stutzman for a good portion of the game, allowing Oguine to guard ISU point guard Brandon Boyd and junior Bobby Moorehead to chase Idaho State’s collection of shooters.

Montana guard Timmy Falls (1)/by Jason Bacaj

Falls helped Montana hold Stutzman to 10 points as the Bengals hit 5-of-19 shots from beyond the arc. Boyd scored a team-high 19 points but it took him 16 shots to get there. He missed four of his five 3-point attempts. Balint Mocsan scored 14 points but missed five of his seven 3-point shots.

“He’s (Stutzman) a really good player, he’s really long, his release is really high so it’s pretty difficult to guard him,” Falls said. “Coach, in the second half, he was running off the big man so he told me to get on top of him, get in front of him so it was hard for him to get off the screen and easier for me to get off.”

Almost every time Idaho State missed — the Bengals shot 51.5 percent after halftime but still lost the second half by three — the Grizzlies secured the rebound. ISU got just four offensive boards while Montana ripped down 17 offensive rebounds, including seven by Oguine and four more from center Jamar Akoh. UM won the battle of the boards, 45-27.

“The coaches told me we had to win this on the offensive boards, especially when they went to that zone,” Oguine said. “It’s difficult to box out, especially from the top of the key in that zone so it was about finding gaps, making a couple of moves to get downhill and get inside positions. It worked out for me, a couple of balls bounced my way and I took advantage of it.”

Oguine notched his second double-double of the season despite missing all four of his 3-point tries and making 6-of-15 overall. He led Montana to a 24-1 advantage in second-chance points and made 10-of-15 free throws on the way to his sixth 20-point game this season.

Montana guard Michael Oguine (0)/by Jason Bacaj

“He got a put-back and-1 and I was like, ‘Mike, I just love playing with you, I love watching you when you are playing like this,” Krslovic said. “He’s special. His athleticism is amazing. I don’t think anyone in the Big Sky can match it.”

Falls contributed 21 good minutes, allowing the Griz to play Rorie for seven minutes after halftime. After the game, Rorie had ice on his right knee but later confirmed it was simply for standard recovery. Montana’s junior point guard played 25 minutes, the first time he has played less than 31 minutes this season.

“Ahmaad, Mike, all the starters, they’ve been playing big minutes this year for us so I think to be able to come off the bench and produce gives them a little more rest is crucial,” Falls said. “We want to get them rest so we get the body right for March.”

Akoh scored 13 points to go with his seven rebounds, Falls scored 13 points and had three of UM’s eight assists, sophomore Sayeed Pridgett scored 10 points and grabbed eight rebounds and Montana led for the final 25 minutes of the game despite shooting 42 percent.

With their 10th Big Sky regular-season title secured, Montana’s focus now shifts to Reno. The Grizzlies will open the Big Sky Tournament at noon PST on Thursday against the winner of Tuesday’s No. 8 versus No. 9 game between North Dakota and Montana State. The Griz swept both teams during the regular season.

“We feel like we are in a good position but we know it’s a whole new season,” Oguine said. “We know when we get to Reno, we can’t let up. You slip up once and you are done and this all goes to waste. We are not going to let that happen.”

Photos by Jason Bacaj. All Rights Reserved.

 

Montana senior forward Fabijan Krslovic with his parents and head coach Travis DeCuire/by Jason Bacaj

 

About Colter Nuanez

Colter Nuanez is the co-founder and senior writer for Skyline Sports. After spending six years in the newspaper industry with stops at the Missoulian, the Ellensburg Daily Record and the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, the former Washington Newspaper Association Sportswriter of the Year and University of Montana Journalism School graduate ('09) has cultivated a deep passion for sports journalism during his 13-year career covering the Big Sky Conference. In August of 2014, Colter and brother Brooks merged their passions of writing and art to found Skyline Sports.

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