MISSOULA — As he walked off the floor at Dahlberg Arena – exit stage right, just minutes after the Montana Grizzlies wrapped up their biggest win of the year with an 80-74 final score over Montana State – Travis DeCuire made one last stop.
He paused in front of the student section, shook a few hands and left with a few more waves of his hands over his head, encouraging the biggest Griz crowd of the year to keep the volume up on the chants of “F-T-C!” still ringing through the arena.
It was a fitting exit. All game long, the waving arms of DeCuire and the Montana players controlled the crowd like a stereo speaker with only three settings on the dial – “loud,” “really loud,” and “rock concert.”
DeCuire has talked up the importance of Montana’s home crowd all year. The Griz are 14-1 at Dahlberg Arena, despite an average home attendance of 2,967 that’s about a thousand short of the usual. The last time the Griz averaged under 4,000 fans, not counting last year’s COVID season, was in 2016-17. Nearly-empty student sections have been a shockingly common sight, and Montana has sold student section tickets to the general public for the first time.
But if there’s one absolute truth in University of Montana athletics, it’s this: no matter how big the struggles, people will show up for the ‘Cat game. On Sunday, that meant a season-high 5,285 fans, a full maroon-clad student section and the full 360 degrees of Dahlberg Arena screaming at the refs and the Montana State bench.
Because of COVID protocols a year ago, it was the biggest crowd most of Montana’s roster – including sophomores Josh Bannan, Robby Beasley and Brandon Whitney, the Grizzlies’ three leading scorers – had ever played in front of, and they seemed ecstatic about it.
They threw their hands over their head when they scored. They threw their hands over their head when they got a stop. They threw their hands over their head after every big play as they held off the Bobcats down the stretch – Beasley’s 3-pointer that pushed the lead back into double digits after a 7-0 MSU run, Whitney’s and-1 layup to beat the shot clock with just over a minute to play, Bannan’s dagger post turnaround in the final minute.
The gesture seemed almost like a reflex, a way to remind themselves to keep the momentum going as much as to pump up an arena that was already out for blood.
“That was sick,” Bannan said. “That was probably one of the best basketball experiences of my life. The students were awesome. … When the other team goes on a run and then we make one play, the home crowd just erupts and that sort of swings the momentum.”
That came one night after another season-high crowd of 4,095 helped the Lady Griz to a runaway 71-57 win over Montana State, shaking the second-place Bobcats into shooting 32.8% and making so many defensive lapses it was hard to tell what their game plan on that end even was.
Montana, meanwhile, thrived on the momentum and energy. Carmen Gfeller put up 34 points, making 5 of 7 3-pointers and grabbing eight rebounds. Seniors Sophia Stiles and Abby Anderson both scored in double figures and carved up Montana State’s defense with five assists apiece as the Lady Griz put together a performance that head coach Brian Holsinger called one of their most complete of the season.
“We just didn’t respond to the situations. It got really loud in here, so good job, Montana,” Bobcats head coach Tricia Binford said after the game. “I thought the crowd was fantastic. We had a pretty tough preseason schedule with some road games with good crowd noise trying to prepare us for this moment, but we just need to get more of that experience to have the composure and the steadiness.”
Montana put together multiple 7-0 runs in the third quarter to build a double-digit lead, fired the crowd up with plays like Abby Anderson’s block and run-out layup and shut the ‘Cats down to the point that it felt they never had a way back into the game.
That script would have seemed awfully familiar to anyone in Washington-Grizzly Stadium on Nov. 20, when 26,856 fans helped Montana blitz Montana State early in a 29-10 rivalry win in which the Griz made a team that went to the national championship game two months later look like a lost group of high schoolers. The Bobcats lost all the momentum in that one when Montana scored on a 74-yard pass to Junior Bergen not even a minute into the game, never got it back, and gained under 125 yards until a late consolation touchdown drive.
The ad copy practically writes itself – Try this one little trick to beat the ‘Cats! – but for all three Montana teams this year, the recipe really was that simple: Play at home, get the momentum, never give it up, profit.
That was business as usual for the men’s basketball team, which stretched its home winning streak against Montana State to 11.
It was a welcome change for the football and women’s basketball teams, which had each lost four of five to the ‘Cats in Missoula in the years after iconic coaches left – Bobby Hauck for the football team, Robin Selvig for the Lady Griz.
Those losing streaks encapsulated one of the defining trends in the Big Sky Conference in the past decade. Hauck lost just six Big Sky Conference games in seven years in his first tenure at Montana. Selvig won at least 20 games in 31 out of 38 years with the Lady Griz.
Each program fell from supremacy after each paramount head coach left. And Montana State stepped up to fill the void. Binford took Selvig’s spot as the longest-tenured coach in the league, and the Bobcats’ women’s basketball team finally broke through with a Big Sky-record 19 conference wins in 2019-20 before losing its chance at an NCAA Tournament appearance due to COVID.
MSU has won three Big Sky titles and are in the mix for the fourth in the last six seasons. The Bobcats are also searching for their second NCAA Tournament berth of that span.
Montana State football hired Jeff Choate, who ripped off four straight wins against the Grizzlies – directly contributing to Hauck being hired for a second tenure in Missoula – and built the roster that took the Bobcats to their first national title game appearance since 1984.
Add those two with the men’s basketball team, which just wrapped up its first conference title since 2002 in head coach Danny Sprinkle’s third year, and Montana State is the current model of success in the Big Sky. The Bobcats have certainty in their vision, and are rolling with the kind of energy that builds up every program in the athletic department. That campus-wide confidence is something that Montana had and is trying to get back.
Dahlberg Arena over the weekend was a reminder that the recipe isn’t as complicated as Montana’s athletic department has made it look over much of the last decade. It’s no wonder that DeCuire paused to salute the student section, or that Lady Griz head coach Brian Holsinger ended his press conference the way he did.
“When I took this job, this was one of the reasons that I wanted to be here,” Holsinger said. “And this is unique. This is not everywhere. This environment is special. … This program is special. We want to get this thing back to what it once was when Robin Selvig was at the helm.”
Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
