Griz lose lead late, drop conference opener to Eastern Washington

THE MATCHUP

A classic rivalry kicked off Big Sky Conference play as Eastern Washington visited Missoula on Thursday night. Both teams had gotten hot in December after slow starts, with EWU entering on a 4-2 run that included a win over Cal. The Griz were 3-1 in December, with their only loss on the road at Gonzaga. In David Riley’s second year, the Eagles returned veterans like Angelo Allegri, Steele Venters and Ethan Price, plus Willamette transfer Cedric Coward, who recorded a triple-double in their last game against Northwest Indian College.

THE RESULT

In a matchup that had all the physicality and drama expected of a Montana-Eastern game but was high-scoring despite that, Eastern’s late run gave the visitors an 87-80 win. Head coaches Travis DeCuire and David Riley got into a heated argument after a collision between Eastern Washington’s Steele Venters and Montana’s Aanen Moody midway through the first half, drawing matching bench warnings. Griz point guard Brandon Whitney sat for the final 13:15 of the first half after picking up two fouls.

The Griz led 39-37 at the break and held the lead for the first 13 minutes of the second half, but Dane Erikstrup’s layup with 6:54 to go gave the Eagles a 67-66 lead. Erikstrup added two free throws with 4:44 left to break a 71-71 tie, and Montana never got back even. On a crucial late sequence, Montana forced a miss but Eastern secured a tipped offensive rebound and Ethan Price slashed to the basket for a 3-point play and an 82-76 lead with 1:30 left. Montana’s press forced a steal with the Griz down four and 30 seconds left, but Josh Bannan called a timeout the Griz didn’t have after diving on the loose ball, and Venters made both technical free throws to seal it.

The Eagles finished with a 45 to 28 advantage on the boards, including 13 offensive rebounds. Montana made 14 3-pointers, with seven players hitting at least one, but shot just 14 of 21 at the free-throw line. 

THE STANDOUTS

Montana forward Josh Bannan had one of the best all-around games of his stellar junior season, grinding his way to 24 points, 10 rebounds and six assists. He was the only Griz player with more than four rebounds, and his six assists tied his season and career high. The one blemish on his game was an 11 for 16 mark at the free-throw line, including three misses in the final eight minutes. The big forward returned to the court in his jersey after the game to shoot more free throws.

Dischon Thomas added 20 points for Montana, and Aanen Moody had 17. The two transfers hit four 3-pointers apiece, including back-to-back triples – first Thomas, then Moody – midway through the second half to answer a 6-0 run by Eastern Washington.

The Eagles had six players score in double figures, led by Angelo Allegri with 19. Erikstrup added 17, including a 9 for 10 mark at the free-throw line. Eastern Washington made 30 of 34 free throws.

BOX SCORE

QUOTABLE

“There’s areas we’ve grown from November to December. I think, defensively, we’ve been a lot better than we were tonight. If you’re going to win close conference games against good teams, you need to defend better than 48%. … Offensively, we put enough on the board to win.” – Montana head coach Travis Decuire

“We’ve understood that our size was our advantage, but we got a little too obsessed with it early in the year. We just have to play basketball and let our size just happen. Kill them on the glass, get post-ups when it comes naturally, and our guys are starting to understand that.” – Eastern Washington head coach David Riley

“The way they play defense, they sag. They don’t really come out and guard, and they give up a lot of 3-point shots, which is why we took so many. The paint was crowded, it was hard to really get in there and get what you want. What you can do is get in and pass it back out, so that’s what we did. … It was going inside. It was coming back out because they weren’t going to allow us to play one-on-one.” – Decuire

“To me live, it looked like a flagrant foul. You’ve got a guy who was going for the loose ball and a guy who wasn’t going for the ball, he was going for the body, which is why you get that situation. If two guys dive on the floor for a ball and there’s contact, it’s a 50/50. … But when you go for the body, I have an issue with that.” – Decuire on a first-half collision between Montana’s Aanen Moody and Eastern Washington’s Steele Venters that sent Moody crashing into the courtside media table and resulted in a common foul for Venters and bench warnings for both DeCuire and EWU head coach David Riley

UP NEXT

Montana hosts Idaho at 2 p.m. Saturday. The Vandals lost to Montana State on Thursday in Bozeman, 72-58. Eastern Washington might pass the Vandals on their way to Bozeman, where the Eagles will play MSU on Saturday with a 1 p.m. tipoff.

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