Big Sky Conference

Montana State hopes to snap road losing streak at Sac

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Montana State is looking to snap a road losing streak that dates back to last season while Sacramento State looks to stay hot.

MSU plays at Sac State on Thursday, the site of the Bobcats’ last road victory on February 6 of 2016. Montana State has lost 10 regular-season road games since and 11 overall away from Bozeman if you include the Bobcats’ loss to the Hornets in the first round of the Big Sky Conference tournament in Reno last March.

Sacramento State took its lumps during the non-conference, posting a 3-0 record at home but losing all eight away from California’s capital city. The Hornets started Big Sky play 0-3, including home losses to Northern Colorado and North Dakota before falling at Portland State. But Sac has rallied for two straight wins entering Thursday’s matchup as the Hornets earned a sweep at Southern Utah and at Northern Arizona last weekend.

“I’ve seen this coming over time,” Sac State head coach Brian Katz said. “We had a pretty rough preseason schedule. It kind of beat us down. We slowly but surely gained our confidence back and we played like a pretty confident team this last weekend. I hope it continues.”

RELATED: Sac State hopes to capitalize on size advantage in the Big Sky

On Tuesday, Skyline Sports caught up with Montana State head coach Brian Fish for his thoughts on the road matchup with Sac State.

Montana State head coach Brian Fish/ by Brooks Nuanez

Montana State head coach Brian Fish

What difference does it make when you play defense and rebound like you did on Saturday (in a 68-53 win over Northern Colorado in Bozeman?

Fish: “There’s a fine line between being up on a guy and disrupting a guy’s rhythm. Saturday, we were certainly disrupting guys’ rhythm, holding them down and limiting them to one shot. When you do that, you earn an advantage in field goal percentage. I thought our energy on the defensive end was very, very good on Saturday.”

How good was it?

 “It’s a step in the right direction. It didn’t solve all the world’s problems but it certainly was better than it’s been and another step we have to take. Having Joe (Mvuezolo) back with another long, rangy athlete out there to cover another guy helps and gives our bench some depth. There’s a lot of things that contributed to it but for the most part, the young guys just paid attention and wanted to get it done.”

Is this the kind of defense that this team is capable of playing every game?

 “That’s what we need to do. We’ve shown glimpses of it. We didn’t allow our shooting to affect it. We continued to play, they missed some shots and we built on the defense, got 23 points in transition as well that was certainly a big factor in helping us.”

When you don’t have a guy who is eight or nine rebounds a game, what does it take to be a good team rebounding?

 “Your guards have to be good rebounders. That’s kind of been our M.O. our three years here: everyone contributes. We have a lot of guys who get five or six, which leads us to getting very good rebounding numbers. We’ve done that well. But Thursday night, we face a big team where we will certainly have to have great gang rebounding again.”

Sac State senior Eric Stuteville/ by Brooks Nuanez

Sac State senior Eric Stuteville

What do you expect from Sac State?

 “A very physical team. Playing very well right now, two straight road wins (at Southern Utah, at Northern Arizona). Shot the ball well, got up into the 80 points. When they do that, they are a hard guard. We played them three times last year. They have all the same players except for one (Cody Demps). We are quite a bit different. When I watch the tapes, you don’t see as many guys for us as we had last year. They will be a physical team and try to impose their will on us. We will have to fight through that.”

Sac is a big team. How do you match up?

 “There’s two things: one, they are big. But two, we can get going a little at them downhill and we need to do that. They are going to be physical. Brian (Katz) does a good job of changing defenses. They like to come out and trap you. They like to come out and switch to zone. They will throw a lot at us. It will be a little of study session there for Harry (point guard Harald Frey) to make sure he’s on top of what he has to do because they will get physical off screens. He will have to play through that.”

You have used Devonte Klines and Quinton Everett as a tag team on most teams’ best players. Most teams in this league’s best players are guards. Justin Strings, does he provide a different challenge?

 “A little different challenge, a little bigger guy (6-foot-7). We have thrown four guards at teams for the first time this weekend with Joe. We will go a little bit of that. We will try to make teams adjust to us as we build this thing. It’s really been the first time in a long time I’ve had everybody out there and practicing. It gives us a chance over the next few weeks to build it.”

Sac St. forward Nick Hornsby boxes out MSU forward Zach Green

Sac St. forward Nick Hornsby boxes out MSU forward Zach Green

Your last road win was at Sac State and you lost to them in the Big Sky Tournament. Do either of those things play a factor of the mentality of this trip?

 “I don’t think so. I could ask my team the score of those games and they probably don’t even know the score of Saturday’s game. It’s a matter of going and playing well and building some confidence and having Harry continuing to grow as a point guard. Knowing that base is covered and having Tyler (Hall, flu) getting back healthy. We had 27 points out of our four and five spots the other night which was a very good plus.”

Sac State senior Nick Hornsby, how does he compliment Strings?

 “He’s a senior who gets after it, can stretch the floor. Stuteville is very, very big (6-11). They cause a lot of trouble with just their overall physical size.”

Other key information:

Montana State is ranked No. 333 in the NCAA RPI index..

Sacramento State, led by ninth-year head coach Brian Katz, is ranked No. 326 in the NCAA RPI index.

When: Thursday, 8 p.m. MDT

Where: Hornet Nest (1,012), Sacramento, California

Radio: 1450 KMMS

Watch: watchbigsky.com

Series: Montana State leads 36-22.

Last: 2016, Sac State beat MSU 79-75 in the first round of the Big Sky Tournament.

Probable starters

Montana State

G – Harald Frey, 6-1, Fr., 11.8 ppg

G – Tyler Hall, 6-5, Soph., 23.5 ppg

G – Devonte Klines, Soph., 5-11, 4.7 ppg

F – Zach Green, 6-4, Jr., 10.8 ppg

F – Sam Neumann, 6-5, Soph., 5.9 ppg

Sacramento State

G – Izayah Mauriohooho-Le’afa, 6-2, Fr., 4.7 ppg

G –Marcus Graves, 6-0, Jr., 11.7 ppg

F – Justin Strings, 6-7, Jr., 15.6 ppg

F – Nick Hornsby, 6-7, Sr., 11.5 ppg

C – Eric Stuteville, 6-11, Sr., 10.3 ppg

Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.

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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