Montana State received its first bit of national recognition in a generation for its record-setting Thursday night. After SportsCenter highlights and mentions on ESPN radio shows, it seemed inevitable the Bobcats would come back down to earth.
The snap back to reality came in the second half against surging Southern Utah. Yet Montana State was able to fend off the short-handed Thunderbirds and move above .500 in Big Sky Conference play in the process.
MSU guard Quinton Everett
Less than 48 hours after Neil Everett referenced Spectators Bar on ESPN highlighting a Bobcat team that banged a Big Sky-record 25 3-poitners against Northern Arizona, MSU found a way to win again. Zach Green brought the crowd of 2,624 to its feet with a pair of two-handed slam dunks in the final two minutes, Marcus Colbert scored five points in the final 49 seconds and Montana State outlasted Southern Utah 80-73 on Saturday afternoon.
“What happened on Thursday and then some of the things that come with that is the next bridge you cross as you are building a program,” MSU head coach Brian Fish said after his team moved to 7-6 in league play, 12-13 overall. “Like (MSU associate athletic director for media relations) Bill (Lamberty) said, we haven’t had that much time on ESPN in 20 years. We got attention.
“Then we come out and make shots in the first half. Then second half, we thought it was going to be easy. When the game was finally over, I thought it was the greatest thing to happen to us in building this program because it’s another bridge to cross to understand it’s not going to always be easy.”
Montana State shot 52 percent in the first half and drilled 6-of-10 from beyond the 3-point arc in taking a 40-26 lead to the locker room. But precocious SUU point guard John Marshall scored 19 of his 21 points in the second half, James McGee scored 14 of his 16 after intermission and Southern Utah cut a 17-point deficit to three with 80 seconds to play. But Colbert rose to the occasion to carry MSU down the stretch as SUU fell to 2-11 in league play, 4-19 overall.
MSU guard Tyler Hall
“I’m not sure we slowed them down at all,” said SUU head coach Nick Robinson, who’s team defeated Montana State 93-82 in Cedar City, Utah earlier this season. “They scored 40 in the first, 40 in the second. I think they helped us out by missing a couple of free throws. For us, we were able to make a few more plays in the second half and took care of the ball. But Montana State is playing extremely well right now and we felt fortunate to be in the game.”
MSU freshman Tyler Hall led a balanced Bobcat scoring attack as MSU shot 50 percent from the floor for the game. Hall scored 14 points and dished out three of MSU’s 15 assists. Junior reserve Sarp Gobeloglu hit 3-of-4 from beyond the arc and scored 13 points to lead an MSU bench that chipped in 31 points. Green and Quinton Everett each scored 12 points and combined for 13 rebounds. Colbert scored all 11 of his points after halftime and dished out a season-high nine assists.
“We talked about that right after the NAU game that we are not going to be able to get them to drop like they did in that game,” said Hall, who scored a career-high 36 points at SUU. “We talked about attacking the basket and I thought we did that well early.”
Early on, Montana State was the clear aggressor, getting into the lane and kicking to the wing prevalently. Hall drilled his first 3-pointer one game after hitting 8-of-11 from deep as did Everett, who scored nine points in the first half. Gobeloglu scored five points and junior Steph Holm scored six of his nine during a 14-2 run that extended MSU’s lead from 7-6 to 21-8. A pair of Gobeloglu free throws put MSU up 37-20 with 2:31 in the first half, the Bobcats’ largest lead.
MSU guard Steph Holm
“I was trying to get the wealth moved around a little bit,” Fish said.
Montana State’s lead stayed in double figures until Race Parsons hit 2-of-5 free throw attempts on two trips to the stripe to cut the deficit to 61-52. Gobeloglu answered with a 3-pointer to push it back to 12.
With less than three minutes to play, Southern Utah slapped on a full-court trap that flustered the Bobcats. Green turned over the in-bounds pass twice, including throwing the ball directly to McGee at midcourt. Following the steal, McGee immediately hit a 3-poitner that cut the lead to 66-59. Marshall’s 3-point play cut it to 67-62.
On the ensuing possession, Hall got into the lane and was hammered by Casey Oliverson. After review, the officials deemed the foul flagrant. Hall made the first free throw but missed the second. Colbert secured the offensive rebound and found Hall for a fade-away 3-pointer, his third of the night.
“I was a little irritated with missing the free throw,” Hall said. “Marcus found me and I knocked down the shot.”
McGee answered Hall’s four-point possession with one of his own to keep the deficit to-71-66 with 2:22 left. Colbert missed two free throws, then allowed Marshall to penetrate before hitting a pull-up jump shot to cut it to three with 2:02 to play. Everett missed two more free throws as MSU made just 4-of-10 in the final two minutes and 6-of-14 in the second half.
Following Everett’s second missed free throw, MSU senior Danny Robison snared his third offensive rebound of the night. He found Colbert, who penetrated against Marshall before finding Green filling the lane for a two-handed slam.
MSU guard Marcus Colbert
But Marshall — normally a reserve who averages 4.6 points per game but played 38 minutes because of Trey Kennedy’s suspension — again answered, getting to the free throw line and sinking both to cut the lead to 73-70 with 1:20 remaining.
“He controlled the tempo, got his teammates involved, looked for his shot, got in the paint and got to the free throw line,” Robinson said. “We had three shooters on the floor which allowed for more penetration because Montana State was guarding our shooters pretty tightly.”
Colbert rattled in a contested 3-pointer with 49 seconds to play, but Parsons answered with a step-back 3-pointer of his own. Colbert would not be denied. After winding 26 seconds off the clock, Colbert took Marshall off the dribble again and again found Green streaking down the lane for a two-handed dunk.
“If coach draws a play up and I’m attacking and he’s at the top, he lets me know he’s coming,” Colbert said. “It just so happened his guy helped and he had a free run at the basket both times. You get two dunks like that, you are probably a little more confident. That calmed him down a little bit.”
Green was called for a technical for allegedly slapping the backboard on his second slam, a call Fish vehemently argued. Marshall missed the technical foul shot and McGee missed a 3-pointer on SUU’s final possession. Colbert put the game on ice with two free throws to put him into double figures on a night where he did not seem at full strength physically. Colbert shrugged off any suggestion he’s injury, saying “old man pain, that’s all.”
MSU forward Zach Green
“Every night, I lose sleep on how I’m going to replace him,” Fish said. “It’s a boxing match out there. They are trying to get a foul on him to try to get him on the bench. They know it, we know it if he is on the bench, we aren’t as good. He stays in the boxing match. I feel like the ring guy over there putting the Vaseline on the cuts to keep him going. He stays in there and fights. That’s a fun kid to coach.”
The win secures the first three-game winning streak in Fish’s two-year tenure. The Bobcats now head on the road for a three –game road trip that begins on Saturday with a showdown in Missoula with rival Montana. MSU also plays at Weber State and Idaho State before returning home for its final two against Northern Colorado and North Dakota. UM, Weber, ISU and UND are all ahead of MSU in the standings while UNC two games back.
“I think I’ll enjoy tomorrow and we will go from there,” Fish said with concern lingering in his voice. “We have a tough road to hoe but I also knew we had to put ourselves in the position we are in now to go there. We got ourselves in this position by getting the last three. We are still playing for something on February 13 and that leads to better practices, leads to growing the program. We are 3-1 in February. We have to get better as a team. The schedule makers did no favors so I’ll be praying for some blizzards.”
Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
