Game Recap

Oguine, Griz outlast NAU in home finale

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Sayeed Pridgett dropped the ball off on the fast break and Michael Oguine took flight, slamming down a tomahawk dunk.

Hanging on the rim for a second afterwards, he howled a primal scream, basking in the adoration of the fans at Dahlberg Arena for one last time.

In his final home game at Dahlberg, Oguine capped a legendary career with a legendary performance, scoring 21 points with 11 rebounds, making several superhuman plays and leading the Montana Grizzlies to a comeback win over Northern Arizona Monday night, 66-64.

“I just knew it was my last one, tried to leave everything out there,” Oguine said. “It’s been such a great time playing here at Dahlberg, and being my last one, I just wanted to give it everything I had.”

Carlos Hines missed a potential game-winning 3-pointer at the buzzer for a very competitive Northern Arizona team, which stifled the Grizzlies early en route to a 35-27 halftime lead.

Hines finished with 18 points for the Lumberjacks.

The win kept Montana one game ahead of Northern Colorado in the Big Sky standings, with two games left for each team.

Montana will travel to Portland State and Sacramento State, while Northern Colorado is away at Southern Utah before hosting Northern Arizona.

In the first half Monday, NAU’s Brooks DeBisschop fouled Oguine while he was going up for a dunk.

That wasn’t even the worst mishap for the Montana star — he lost a contact lens after being poked in the eye early in the second half. After finding it on the court and shaking off the injury, he transformed into an unstoppable force.

In the last eight minutes of the second half alone, Oguine had the tomahawk, another dunk off a cut, and then a powerful two-handed putback slam after Timmy Falls missed a 3-pointer.

“Getting a dunk like that kind of, you know, ruins their momentum, kind of demoralizes them,” Oguine said. “I was able to get a few tonight, teammates put me in good spots, so those are big.”

The last gave Montana a 63-58 lead with 2:44 left, closing a 14-2 run for Montana that saw the Grizzlies flip a seven-point NAU lead on its head.

Two Luke Avdalovic 3-pointers sandwiched around a Sayeed Pridgett layup cut the Montana lead back to 65-64 with just over a minute left, but on the ensuing Montana possession, Oguine made perhaps his biggest plays of the game — without shooting the ball once.

Ahmaad Rorie, who shot 0-for-7 and went scoreless for the first time as a Grizzly, missed a 3 with 38 seconds left, but Oguine nearly jumped over a defender to keep the ball alive.

It wound up in the hands of Pridgett, who was immediately fouled.

He missed the front end of the one-and-one, but Oguine was there again, appearing out of nowhere to grab the rebound.

“We have something that we call stunts … just set plays in place to try to get an offensive rebound,” Oguine said. “Bobby [Moorehead] did a great job, he did his part to get in front of my defender that was blocking me out. It created a lane for me to actually get the rebound, so Bobby gets just as much credit for the offensive rebound as I do.”

He made just one of his free throws, but the rebounds allowed Montana to drain the clock to just 14 seconds, and Northern Arizona couldn’t come up with a better shot than Hines’ 3 at the buzzer.

“It’s not what we drew up, but I always have confidence in Carlos,” NAU coach Jack Murphy said. “He had made some big ones prior to that. He’s a gamer, he’s … fearless, he’s played in some big games in his life. If it goes in, I’m saying, ‘heck yeah.’ Obviously it misses, it’s tough, but I trust him with the ball in his hands.”

Pridgett chipped in with 14 points for Montana, including 10 on 5-of-6 shooting in the second half.

Avdalovic and Cameron Shelton each had 13 for Northern Arizona.

About Andrew Houghton

Andrew Houghton grew up in Washington, DC. He graduated from the University of Montana journalism school in December 2015 and spent time working on the sports desk at the Daily Tribune News in Cartersville, Georgia, before moving back to Missoula and becoming a part of Skyline Sports in early 2018.

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