No. 10 – 2018 Idaho

Record: 22-9 (14-4 Big Sky), point differential of 6.4

Honors: 1x Big Sky first team (Brayon Blake), 1x Big Sky second team (Vic Sanders)

Strengths: 3-point shooting, swagger, confidence, edge

Weaknesses: Forcing turnovers, getting to the free-throw line

Cast and crew: Vic Sanders, Brayon Blake (superstars); Perrion Callendret, Nate Sherwood (wingmen); Arkadiy Mkrtychyan, Jordan Scott, Chad Sherwood, Trevon Allen (role players)

Standout wins: vs. Washington State, 91-64; at Western Michigan, 82-52; at Eastern Washington, 58-51; vs. Montana, 79-77 (OT); at Weber State, 68-62

Big Sky Tournament: lost 92-78 to No. 10 Southern Utah

NCAA Tournament: N/A

Signature moment: They spanked Palouse rival Washington State 91-64 early in the season, holding future NBAer Malachi Flynn to nine points while BJ Blake poured in 26 points and grabbed eight rebounds. But their best win came a few games before the end of the regular season, when they exactly matched that year’s juggernaut Montana team with 35 points in the first half and 36 in the second before outsourcing the Griz 8-6 in overtime for a 79-77 win. Blake went for 27 and 11, Vic Sanders poured in 21 points, and Chad Sherwood handed out eight assists without scoring or turning the ball over. It was one of two times the Griz lost to a Big Sky team all year.

Year after: All five starters – Blake, Sanders, Perrion Callandret, Jordan Scott and Nate Sherwood – left, as did Chad Sherwood and Arkadiy Mkrtychyan. Altogether, the Vandals lost their top seven returning scorers and cratered to 5-27 with two Big Sky wins, sounding the death knell for Don Verlin’s tenure in Moscow.

Why they’re here: Sure, they finished second in the league and didn’t win a conference tournament game. They also finished second during perhaps the toughest, top to bottom, league of the Skyline era. That year’s Montana team, which won both titles, finished (spoiler alert) very high up on this list. Weber State with peak Jerrick Harding finished third, and Big Sky MVP Bogdan Bliznyuk could only drag Eastern Washington into a tie with the Wildcats. Hell, Northern Colorado with peak Andre Spight and emerging Jordan Davis – a team that beat South Dakota and Wyoming in the non-conference – only finished *fifth*. In that context, going 14-4 in conference, beating the Griz the only time they played and doing it all with Sanders and Blake being a peak 1-2 punch gets you on this list.

No. 9- 2020 Eastern Washington

Record: 23-8 (16-4 Big Sky), point differential of 8.0

Honors: Big Sky MVP (Mason Peatling), Big Sky Coach of the Year (Shantay Legans), 1x Big Sky first team (Peatling), 1x Big Sky second team (Jacob Davison), 1x Big Sky third team (Kim Aiken Jr.)

Strengths: Toughness, coaching, pace, depth

Weaknesses: Free-throw shooting

Cast and crew: Mason Peatling, Jacob Davison (stars); Kim Aiken (super wingman); Casson Rouse, Ellis Magnuson, Jack Perry, Tanner Groves (role players)

Standout wins: at Seattle, 74-66; at Weber State, 79-77; at Montana State, 71-58; at Southern Utah, 69-51

Big Sky Tournament: Cancelled

NCAA Tournament: Cancelled

Signature moment: After a 74-71 home loss to a bad Idaho team on February 13 – their worst loss of the Big Sky season – the Eagles fell to 16-8 overall, although they were still in Big Sky contention at 9-4 in conference play. They won 89-81 at Portland State to right the ship, then eked out a 77-76 win against Sac State in Cheney. After that, they were rolling – seven straight wins to close the regular season, including a 100-77 demolition of Idaho State – to clinch the regular-season title before the COVID pandemic canceled the Big Sky tournament.

Year after: Eastern went 16-8 and tied for the league title with Southern Utah & Weber State the following pandemic-impacted year, winning the conference tournament and taking Kansas to the wire in the first round of the NCAAs. That team shows up later on this list.

Why they’re here: Like the 2019-20 Montana State women, this team takes an unfortunate hit on their resume because they were unable to defend their regular-season title in the conference tournament. Still, by closing the regular season on that seven-game unbeaten run, they had clearly established themselves as the favorites going in. Peatling and Aiken were bruisers who didn’t back down from anybody, but they won with skill as much as toughness. Peatling was an underrated passer, everybody in the rotation except point guard Ellis Magnuson could shoot and they averaged over 80 points a game.

No. 8 – 2022 Montana State

Record: 27-8 (16-4 Big Sky), point differential of 7.2

Honors: Big Sky MVP (Jubrile Belo); Big Sky Defensive Player of the Year (Belo), Big Sky Top Reserve (RaeQuan Battle); Big Sky Coach of the Year (Danny Sprinkle); Big Sky Tournament MVP (Xavier Bishop); 2x Big Sky first team (Belo, Bishop); 1x Big Sky honorable mention (Amin Adamu)

Strengths: Size, depth, versatility, shooting, coaching

Weaknesses: Rebounding

Cast and crew: Xavier Bishop, Jubrile Belo (stars); Amin Adamu (wingman); RaeQuan Battle, Great Osobor (future stars); Abdul Mohamed, Tyler Patterson, Nick Gazelas (role players)

Standout wins: at North Dakota State, 69-49; at St. Thomas, 72-65; vs. Montana, 66-59; vs. Eastern Washington, 69-65; at Weber State, 78-57; at Southern Utah, 76-71; vs. Northern Colorado, 87-85

Big Sky Tournament: beat No. 8 Sac State, 83-61; beat No. 4 Weber State, 69-66; beat No. 3 Northern Colorado, 87-66; total point differential of 239-193 (15.3 points per game)

NCAA Tournament: Lost 97-62 to No. 12 Texas Tech in San Diego.

Signature moment: After losing at Montana on February 20, the Bobcats closed the regular season with three straight home games. After wins over Southern Utah and Sacramento State, the regular season finale against Northern Colorado came down to the final seconds. Montana State led by four with 22 seconds after a Nick Gazelas 3-pointer, but Daylen Kountz, who finished with 26 for Northern Colorado, made a layup. Still down by two, the Bears came up with a steal that led to a Bodie Hume 3-pointer with just four seconds to go. Staring at a brutal loss heading into the conference tournament, the ‘Cats had one more answer left, and RaeQuan Battle’s 3-pointer at the buzzer gave them an unlikely 87-85 win. Exactly a week later, they matched up with the Bears again in the conference title game and did away with the drama, putting together a comprehensive performance in an 87-66 win that sent them to March Madness.

Year after: Belo and Bishop left, but Battle and Osobor turned into all-conference players, the Bobcats reloaded with a few key transfers and they won the Big Sky tournament for the second year in a row. That team appears higher on this list.

Why they’re here: Although he stayed in Bozeman for another year, it was obvious by the end of this season that Danny Sprinkle would be heading down the trail to something bigger before too long. The Bobcats’ march to the league title was a triumph of talent and coaching as Sprinkle managed the minutes of league MVP Jubrile Belo, got an exceptional final year from quicksilver transfer point guard Xavier Bishop and kept future stars RaeQuan Battle and Great Osobor – perhaps the two most obviously talented players on the roster – happy coming off the bench. The result was an obnoxiously deep roster and an accomplished season that ended with a dominant Big Sky tournament run.

No. 7 – 2021 Eastern Washington

Record: 16-8, (12-3 Big Sky), point differential of 7.9

Honors: Big Sky MVP (Tanner Groves); Big Sky Defensive Player of the Year (Kim Aiken Jr.); Big Sky Top Reserve (Tyler Robertson); Big Sky Tournament MVP (T. Groves); 2x Big Sky first team (T. Groves, Aiken); 2x Big Sky all-tournament team (T. Groves, Jacob Groves)

Strengths: Free-throw shooting, defensive rebounding, Tanner Groves being a brutal matchup

Weaknesses: Offensive rebounding, turnovers

Cast and crew: Tanner Groves (superstar); Kim Aiken Jr., Tyler Robertson, Michael Meadows (wingmen); Jacob Davison, Jacob Groves, Jack Perry, Ellis Magnuson (role players)

Standout wins: vs. Southern Utah, 75-63; vs. and at Montana by identical scores, 90-76

Big Sky Tournament: beat No. 10 Northern Arizona, 66-60; beat No. 6 Montana, 78-50; beat No. 4 Montana State, 65-55; total point differential of 209-165 (14.7 points per game)

NCAA Tournament: Against No. 3 Kansas in Indianapolis, the Eagles led 46-38 at halftime and held the lead through the first 10 minutes of the second half. But a grinding Kansas run slowly erased the lead, and a DaJuan Harris 3-pointer with 9:48 to go gave the Jayhawks the lead before the favorites closed out a 93-84 win.

Signature moment: That Kansas game was the signature moment, as the Eagles grabbed the attention of the nation for nearly 40 full minutes during the first and only single-location March Madness tournament. Tanner Groves stamped his Big Sky MVP award with 35 points, and his brother Jacob added 23 and nine rebounds as the Groves brothers and their lumberjack beards fleetingly became minor national celebrities.

Year after: Head coach Shantay Legans left for Portland, taking Meadows, Robertson and Perry with him to play for the Pilots. The Groves brothers transferred to Oklahoma and Aiken transferred to Arizona, leaving David Riley with an almost completely bare roster. The first-year coach still got the Eagles over .500 at 19-18, setting the stage for their back-to-back regular-season conference titles the last two years.

Why they’re here: In a weird, truncated, COVID-influenced season, Eastern Washington didn’t dominate all year. The Eagles finished a half-game behind Southern Utah in the conference standings, were tied with Weber State and had a worse overall record than either. But their resume masked a brutal non-conference schedule – EWU lost by five or fewer points to Washington State, Arizona and St. Mary’s – and set them up for an easy run through the conference tournament. Even before they put up the most credible and competitive NCAA Tournament performance by a Big Sky team in the decade, it was clear they were the best team in the conference that year. The Kansas game only cemented their spot on this list.

No. 6 – 2017 North Dakota

Record: 22-10 (14-4 Big Sky); point differential of 6.9

Honors: Big Sky Coach of the Year (Brian Jones); Big Sky Top Reserve (Cortez Seales); Big Sky Tournament MVP (Quinton Hooker); 1x Big Sky first team (Hooker); 1x Big Sky second team (Geno Crandall); 2x Big Sky all-tournament team (Hooker, Corey Baldwin)

Strengths: Transition offense, secondary fast break, shooting

Weaknesses: Protecting the rim, depth

Cast and crew: Quinton Hooker, Geno Crandall (superstars); Corey Baldwin, Drick Bernstine (wingmen); Conner Avants, Cortez Seales, Carson Shanks (role players)

Standout wins: vs. Cal State Bakersfield, 57-55; at North Dakota State, 74-56; swept Weber State, 83-77 and 77-68; vs. Eastern Washington, 95-86

Big Sky Tournament: beat No. 8 Portland State, 95-72; beat No. 4 Idaho, 69-64; beat No. 3 Weber State, 93-89 (OT); total point differential of 257-225 (10.7 points per game)

NCAA Tournament: 15-seed; lost 100-82 to No. 2 Arizona in Salt Lake City. Hooker had 25, Bernstine had 20 and 15 (against Lauri Markannen, no less)

Signature moment: The Fighting Hawks trailed by double digits in both the first and second halves of the conference title game against Jeremy Senglin’s Weber State, and were still down by six with under a minute to go. Two buckets by Quinton Hooker and a layup by Geno Crandall tied it with under 10 seconds to play, sending UND to overtime against the team that had knocked them out in each of the previous three conference tournaments. This time it was different, as Hooker and Crandall combined for 10 of North Dakota’s 12 points in OT and each made a pair of crucial free throws in the final minute to send the Fighting Hawks to the Dance.

Year after: The next year was North Dakota’s last in the Big Sky. Crandall came back and averaged 17 points a game, but without Hooker, the Fighting Hawks fell to 12-20 overall.

Why they’re here: A year before leaving the Big Sky, North Dakota put together a season to remember and a resume that absolutely stuffed the Fighting Hawks on this list. Good record and point differential in a competitive year? Check. A star who could measure up against anybody in the last decade? Quinton Hooker, check. A great conference tournament run? Check (beating senior Jeremy Senglin and freshman Jerrick Harding in the title game is as good a scalp as anyone has ever claimed on that stage).

They had an identity in their fast-paced offensive running, plenty of talent around Hooker and even a credible NCAA Tournament performance, forcing Allonzo Trier and Markannen’s Arizona Wildcats to give up on defense and just go for triple digits. I’m not sure they could be any lower on this list, and they have an argument for at least a few spots higher.

No. 5 – 2016 Weber State

Record: 26-9 (15-3 Big Sky); point differential of 9.1

Honors: Big Sky MVP (Joel Bolomboy); Big Sky Defensive Player of the Year (Bolomboy); Big Sky Top Reserve (Kyndahl Hill); Big Sky Tournament MVP (Jeremy Senglin); 2x first team all-Big Sky (Bolomboy, Senglin); 2x Big Sky all-tournament team (Bolomboy, Senglin)

Strengths: Rebounding, rim protection, offensive efficiency, basically all the things you’d assume a team with an NBA center would be good at

Weaknesses: Forcing turnovers

Cast and crew: Joel Bolomboy, Jeremy Senglin (superstars); Kyndahl Hill, Zach Braxton (wingmen); Ryan Richardson, McKay Cannon, Cody John, Dusty Baker, Richaud Gittens (role players)

Standout wins: vs. Central Michigan, 63-60; vs. South Dakota State, 99-95; vs. Montana, 60-54

Big Sky Tournament: beat No. 8 Portland State, 78-74; beat No. 5 North Dakota, 83-78 (OT); beat No. 2 Montana, 62-59; total point differential of 223-211 (4.0 points per game)

NCAA Tournament: No. 15 seed; lost 71-53 to Xavier in St. Louis

Signature moment: In the semis of the Big Sky tournament, the Wildcats matched up with a North Dakota team they’d knocked out each of the previous two seasons. What ensued was an all-time classic. The score was tied 30-30 at halftime, and neither team led by more than five in the second half. With 12 seconds left in regulation and Weber down three, Jeremy Senglin drilled a 3-pointer to send it to overtime. He canned another triple in the first minute of the extra period to put the Wildcats ahead, and then another with just under a minute left to put Weber up six and all but seal the game. That capped a torrential scoring duel with North Dakota’s Quinton Hooker, who had 38 points and made all 14 of his free throws. Senglin had 31. Joel Bolomboy had 17 points and 19 rebounds for the Wildcats.

Year after: Bolomboy was a second-round NBA Draft pick. Senglin returned for his senior year and became Weber’s all-time leading scorer. The Wildcats finished 20-14 and went all the way to overtime in the conference title game against the North Dakota team they’d knocked out the year before, but this time Hooker, Geno Grandall and the Fighting Hawks prevailed.

Why they’re here: Given that Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis had been retired from football for 70 years by 2016, it might have been appropriate to re-bestow their “Mr. Inside” and “Mr. Outside” nicknames on Bolomboy and Senglin. More than their considerable talents, it was their fit that made the Wildcats so devastating. Bolomboy was the best interior defense/rebounding big man of the last decade, bar none. Senglin, who shot 43.3% from 3 that year on seven attempts a game, is on a very short list of the best perimeter scorers in that time frame. The combination of the two, plus the experienced Kyndahl Hill – all three were from Texas – and a young Zach Braxton made Weber State very hard to stop at both ends of the court. Their Big Sky Tournament run wasn’t as dominant on the scoreboard as some others, but the Wildcats had to go through North Dakota – which won the conference title the year after – and Martin Breunig’s Montana, so it’s difficult to turn that into a negative given who they played.

No. 4 – 2019 Montana

Record: 26-9 (16-4 Big Sky); point differential of 7.6

Honors: Big Sky Top Reserve (Kendal Manuel); Big Sky Tournament MVP (Ahmaad Rorie); 2x Big Sky first team (Rorie, Sayeed Pridgett); 1x Big Sky third team (Michael Oguine); 2x Big Sky all-tournament team (Rorie, Oguine)

Strengths: Depth, shooting, versatility, point-guard Play, coaching

Weaknesses: Free-throw shooting

Cast and crew: Ahmaad Rorie (superstar); Sayeed Pridgett (star); Jamar Akoh (half-season star); Michael Oguine (ultimate wingman); Kendal Manuel (wingman); Donaven Dorsey, Bobby Moorehead, Timmy Falls (role players)

Standout wins: vs. Georgia State, 81-74; vs. Miami (Ohio), 73-71; at South Dakota State, 85-74; at Northern Colorado, 88-64; at Weber State, 83-80

Big Sky Tournament: beat No. 9 Sacramento State, 79-73; beat No. 4 Weber State, 78-49; beat No. 3 Eastern Washington, 78-72; total point differential of 235-194 (13.7 points per game)

NCAA Tournament: No. 15 seed; lost 74-55 against Michigan in Des Moines, Iowa

Signature moment: Jamar Akoh, the Grizzlies’ imposing, athletic center, was lost for the season on February 7th in a 100-59 win against Idaho, the Grizzlies’ sixth victory in a row. Two nights later, Montana nearly blew a double-digit second-half lead at home against Eastern Washington, but Michael Oguine scored the final seven points for the Griz, including the winning free throw with 29 seconds left, in a 75-74 nail-biter. The next week, they went on the road to Weber State and pulled out another close one, 83-80, with Sayeed Pridgett and Kendal Manuel making the plays down the stretch. The Griz eventually ran their winning streak to 10 games, establishing themselves as contenders even without Akoh.

Year after: Without Rorie, Oguine and Akoh, Pridgett and Manuel had the Griz at 18-13 and a definite contender going into the Big Sky Tournament before the season was canceled by COVID.

Why they’re here: This was a fantastic team – likely better, on pure talent, than the Grizzlies’ 2018 conference champions. Ahmaad Rorie and Michael Oguine were two iconic Montana stars in their final seasons. Sayeed Pridgett, the unorthodox, efficient 6-foot-5 post scorer, was one of the most difficult matchups in the league and outscored them both. Jamar Akoh, before he got hurt, was the league’s dominant big man, and the Griz had multiple former Pac-12 players coming off the bench in Donaven Dorsey and Kendal Manuel. Rorie, Oguine, Akoh, Dorsey and 3-and-D wing Bobby Moorehead were seniors. This is about the point of the list where teams start to be separated by what-ifs. If Akoh hadn’t gotten hurt, the 2019 Griz might have been No. 1 on this list. As it is, they weren’t far away.

No. 3 – 2023 Montana State

Record: 25-10 (15-3 Big Sky); point differential of 7.0

Honors: Big Sky Defensive Player of the Year (Darius Brown II); Big Sky Top Reserve (Great Osobor); Big Sky Tournament MVP (RaeQuan Battle); 1x Big Sky first team (Battle); 1x Big Sky second team (Jubrile Belo); 1x Big Sky third team (Brown); 2x Big Sky all-tournament team (Battle, Belo)

Strengths: Top three players, coaching, defense, free-throw shooting

Weaknesses: Shooting, depth

Cast and crew: RaeQuan Battle (superstar); Jubrile Belo, Darius Brown II (stars); Great Osobor (super wingman); Caleb Fuller, Patrick McMahon, Tyler Patterson, Robert Ford III (role players)

Standout wins: at Long Beach State, 70-57; at Southern Utah, 86-83; at Montana, 67-64; at Eastern Washington, 79-74

Big Sky Tournament: beat No. 8 Northern Colorado, 84-73; beat No. 3 Weber State, 60-58 (2OT); beat No. 9 Northern Arizona, 85-78; total point differential of 229-209 (6.7 points per game)

NCAA Tournament: No. 14 seed; lost 77-65 to Kansas State in Greensboro, North Carolina. Battle scored 27 points.

Signature moment: By the time the second overtime of MSU’s Big Sky semifinal against Weber State rolled around, the evening was dragging on towards midnight and the exhausted players were dragging themselves around the court. Neither team got to 50 points in regulation, then they matched each other with four points – one bucket and two free throws apiece – in the first overtime. In that context, RaeQuan Battle’s game-winning alley-oop dunk at the buzzer was less signature moment and more heaven-sent miracle. Darius Brown II got into the lane, Battle cut in from the weakside for the lob and the Bobcats were 60-58 winners. Postgame, Battle and head coach Danny Sprinkle revealed that the play call was Battle’s idea. It was the latest in a long line of iconic moments for the high-flying wing that season, joining his game-winner at Southern Utah, his winning free throws at Montana, numerous other highlight-reel dunks and, finally, his 27 points against Kansas State that kept the Bobcats in their NCAA Tournament game until the end.

Year after: Sprinkle left, Battle, Brown and Osobor all transferred out – with the latter two joining Sprinkle for a magical NCAA Tournament year at Utah State – and Belo graduated. In Matt Logie’s first year as head coach, the Bobcats entered the NCAA Tournament under .500 – but, led by holdover point guard Robert Ford III, won three straight games in Boise to make their third straight March Madness.

Why they’re here: In Sprinkle’s third year, the Bobcats improved on their NCAA Tournament team from the year before. Xavier Bishop was an exceptional player, the tournament MVP in 2022 – but Darius Brown II was better, a wizard with one of the top assist/turnover ratios in the country. Unleashing RaeQuan Battle and Great Osobor, the two most talented players on the team, took pressure and minutes off of Jubrile Belo. They went a game better in conference play than that 2022 team and were way better in their March Madness appearance. Also, they had a level of talent validated by what happened after this season. Brown and Osobor were both All-Mountain West players and made the NCAA Tournament at Utah State, while Battle averaged a team-high 16 points at West Virginia. Brown and Battle then both got NBA Summer League shots, while Osobor is set to be one of the highest NIL earners in the country this season at Washington.

No. 2 – 2015 Eastern Washington

Record: 26-9 (14-4 Big Sky); point differential of 6.7

Honors: Big Sky co-Coach of the Year (Jim Hayford); Big Sky Rookie of the Year (Bogdan Bliznyuk); Big Sky Tournament MVP (Tyler Harvey); 2x Big Sky first team (Harvey, Venky Jois); 2x Big Sky all-tournament team (Harvey, Jois); 1x AP honorable mention All-American (Harvey)

Strengths: Shooting, rim protection, tough Australians

Weaknesses: Rebounding, kind of

Cast and crew: Tyler Harvey (super-duper star); Venky Jois (superstar); Drew Brandon, Ognjen Miljkovic (wingmen); Bogdan Bliznyuk (future star); Parker Kelly, Felix Von Hofe (role players)

Standout wins: at Indiana, 88-86; at San Francisco, 81-76; at Montana, 75-69

Big Sky Tournament: beat No. 7 Idaho, 91-83; beat No. 3 Sacramento State, 91-83; beat No. 1 Montana, 69-65; total point differential of 251-231 (point differential of 6.7 per game)

NCAA Tournament: No. 13 seed; lost 84-74 to Georgetown in Portland

Signature moment: If you beat Indiana at Assembly Hall, that’s going to be your signature moment. Eastern trailed by six at halftime and by 12 with under 15 minutes to go, but Tyler Harvey hit back-to-back 3s and the game was on. Drew Brandon’s layup with just over a minute to go gave EWU a 79-78 lead, and Parker Kelly made the dagger 3 after an offensive rebound on the Eagles’ next possession. Yogi Ferrell had 27 for Indiana, but Brandon matched that and added eight rebounds, five steals and four assists for Eastern. Harvey had 20, and Venky Jois had 20 points, 14 rebounds and five blocks.

Year after: Harvey left, a second-round draft pick of the Orlando Magic. Austin McBroom tried to fill the role alongside Jois, Van Hofe and Bliznyuk, but Eastern fell to 18-16 and fifth in the conference.

Why they’re here: It would be enough to say that this team ripped the heart out of a 21-year-old Andrew Houghton, sitting one row from the top of Dahlberg Arena to watch the conference title game, but that would obscure the accomplishments of one of the most explosive, deep and fun teams to watch of the last 10 years. The Eagles, with baby Steph Curry in the form of Tyler Harvey, finished third in the country in scoring. Their rotation, more or less, consisted of five 38% or better 3-point shooters plus first-team all-conference forward Venky Jois and point guard Drew Brandon, who averaged 4.7 assists and 1.8 turnovers. They beat Indiana at Indiana, won the last home-site conference tournament on the road, and even had a future Big Sky MVP coming off the bench in Bogdan Bliznyuk. I know one thing – they could score with any team on this list. Their title-game in Missoula showed they could win the other way too.

No. 1 – 2018 Montana

Record: 26-8 (16-2 Big Sky); point differential of 8.7

Honors: Big Sky Coach of the Year (Travis DeCuire); Big Sky Defensive of the Year (Michael Oguine); Big Sky Tournament MVP (Oguine); 1x Big Sky first team (Ahmaad Rorie); 1x Big Sky second team (Oguine); 1x Big Sky third team (Jamar Akoh); 2x Big Sky all-tournament team (Oguine, Rorie)

Strengths: Getting shots at the rim, rebounding, defense, turnover margin, coaching

Weaknesses: Shooting

Cast and crew: Ahmaad Rorie, Michael Oguine (superstars); Jamar Akoh (star); Sayeed Pridgett, Fabijan Krslovic, Bobby Moorehead, Timmy Falls (role players)

Standout wins: at Pittsburgh, 83-78 (OT); vs. UC Irvine, 86-68; at Portland State, 92-89; at Northern Colorado, 88-79; vs. Weber State, 75-57

Big Sky Tournament: beat No. 8 North Dakota, 84-76; beat No. 5 Northern Colorado, 91-89 (OT); beat No. 3 Eastern Washington, 82-65; total point differential of 257-230 (9.0 points per game)

NCAA Tournament: No. 14 seed; lost 61-47 to No. 7 Michigan in Wichita, Kansas

Signature moment: In my opinion, the 2018 Northern Colorado team that lost to the Griz in the Big Sky semifinals was the best team that didn’t make the list. The Bears led by six with just over a minute to play, but Jamar Akoh scored inside, Michael Oguine made one of two free throws and Bobby Moorehead hit a 3 to tie it in the final minute. The Griz had to sweat out two missed free throws from UNC’s Tanner Morgan to send the game to overtime. Oguine scored the first four points of the extra period and Montana never trailed from there. Andre Spight had 22 and Jordan Davis 18 for Northern Colorado, but Ahmaad Rorie, Oguine, Akoh and Fabijan Krslovic all had 16 or more for Montana. After that, the conference title game against Eastern Washington was more or less a formality.

Year after: The 2019 Griz are fourth on this list.

Why they’re here: As previously mentioned, the 2018 Griz might not have been as talented as the 2019 version, given that Sayeed Pridgett hadn’t quite broken out yet. But the pieces just fit together better, especially when Travis DeCuire cut the rotation down to seven players. Unlike the year after, when Jamar Akoh missed the second half of the season, the 2018 Griz got lucky – every single player in their top seven played the entire season except for Timmy Falls, who missed one game. Montana had the same starting lineup for all 34 games.

Ahmaad Rorie, the former Oregon transfer, was magnificent, but this was Michael Oguine’s season. The ultimate role player averaged 16 points, six rebounds, two assists and 1.5 steals, and doubled as the best athlete and best defender in the league. Aside from the three stars (Rorie, Oguine and Akoh), Fabijan Krslovic and Bobby Moorehead were rock-solid role players, and Pridgett and Timmy Falls provided juice off the bench. That’s only seven players, but it was the best seven of this era, and they stayed healthy all season, lost just two Big Sky games and stamped themselves in the conference tournament.

When it comes to a pure basketball team that played with one another, knew when to turn it on to pull away and enjoyed putting on a show, this version of the Montana Grizzlies is the best of the Skyline Sports era.

DAY 4 – West Coast connection

What happened to the Pac 12? It’s an omnipresent question around college basketball the last few years.

In Wayne Tinkle’s second season at Oregon State in 2016, the Beavers finished seventh in the Pac 12 yet received an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament. The following year, four Pac 12 teams got into March Madness, including Arizona getting a No. 2 seed while Oregon and UCLA earned three-seeds.

The following year, only three Pac 12 teams qualified; fourth-seeded Arizona, 11^th-seeded UCLA and 11^th-seeded Arizona State all lost in the first round. In 2019, the Pac 12 again got just three teams in. Oregon won the Pac 12 tournament and got a 12-seed. Arizona State won a play-in game to get an 11-seed. And regular-season champion Washington got a No. 9 seed.

With more than 700 days between NCAA Tournaments, the league didn’t get much more respect in terms of seeding in the 2021 Big Dance either, yet found a way to steal teh show in Indianapolis.

Oregon won the regular-season championship and received a No. 7 seed. USC went 15-5 in league play, posting the most Pac 12 wins in the league on the way to earning a No. 6 seed. Colorado beat USC in the semifinals of the Pac 12 tournament to earn a No. 5 seed.

UCLA earned a spot in the play-in game and took care of business against Michigan State to earn a No. 11 seed. And Oregon State’s run through the post-season earned the Beavers the tournament title and a No. 12 seed.

The seeds didn’t seem to matter that first weekend in Indy for teams from the West Coast. Unless, of course, that team is top-ranked Gonzaga.

Throw the Zags into the mix and teams from the West dominated the first weekend of the 2021 NCAA Tournament like no other conference. Oregon State was the first to move into the Sweet 16. Monday’s slate of games provided an almost constant run into the second weekend from Western schools.

Such a phenomenon is rare. Since John Wooden led UCLA to its 10^th and final NCAA championship under the Wizard of Westwood, teams from the East have dominated the college basketball landscape. Only Kansas in 1988, UNLV in 1990, UCLA in 1995, Arizona in 1997 and Kansas in 2008 could be considered “Western” teams to win the NCAA title. And Kansas might be a stretch.

UCLA played for the title in 1980. Houston lost in the title game in 1983 and 1984. Billy Tubbs’ Oklahoma squad lost in the 1988 title game to Kansas. Tubbs passed away earlier this year. Former Montana State head coach Brian Fish worked for Tubbs at TCU before Fish returned to Creighton to work for Dana Altman.

Rick Majerus’ Utah Runnin’ Utes lost in the 1998 national title game to Tubby Smith’s Kentucky Wildcats. Former Northern Arizona head coach Ben Howland led UCLA to the 2006 national title game where they lost to Florida, the first of two straight national titles for the Gators, marking the last time a team has repeated as NCAA Tournament champions.

Roy Williams won his last national title in 2017 when he led UNC past Gonzaga in the first title game appearance for the Zags.

Oregon got this West Coast surge off to an impressive start. A Ducks team that features four potential NBA Draft picks got out in transition early and often, running the overmatched Iowa Hawkeyes into the ground. Oregon looked as fresh as you’d expect for a team off essentially a first-round bye might look in the 95-80 victory.

Luka Garza, the 2021 Wooden Award winner as the National Player of the Year, had a two-year stretch at Iowa that rivals any in college hoops history. He averaged 24 points and nearly 10 rebounds per game for two consecutive years. The son of former Idaho Vandal standout Frank Garza was the two-time Big Ten Player of the Year and was voted the Sporting News Player of the Year for the second year in a row, marking the first repeat winner since Michael Jordan in 1983 and 1984.

In what would ultimately be his final college game, Garza looked at the same time dominant on offense and overmatched on defense. The big, strong, coordinated yet slow and lumbering 6-foot-11 power forward poured in 36 points and grabbed nine rebounds. But he also found himself in disadvantageous situations in transition defense and against Oregon’s spread offensive system.

That helped the Ducks never miss a beat in denying Garza and the Hawkeyes a chance to break a 22-year Sweet 16 drought.

Oregon advancing meant a call from Fish after he received a picture of the Ducks celebrating. He told a story of when he was on an Altman staff that helped lead UO to the Final Four in Indianapolis in 2017.

“We had to call a second timeout less than six minutes into the game just to get our guys to breath,” Fish, a native of Seymour, Indiana about an hour south of Indy, said with a chuckle. “That’s what it’s like to play in that football arena in front of 70,000 people.”

Our newly acquired “personal driver” Hussein awaits outside Bankers Life Fieldhouse to race us straight to the curb to witness the team everyone is talking about: the top-ranked Bulldogs of GU.

It’s been 55 years since Bobby Knight led the Indiana Hoosiers to an undefeated 1976 national championship. Since then, only Larry Bird’s Indiana State Sycamores in 1979, Jerry Tarkanian’s UNLV Runnin’ Rebels of 1991, Greg Marshall’s 2014 Wichita State Shockers, and John Calipari’s last Final Four team at Kentucky in 2015 entered the NCAA Tournament undefeated since Knight’s Hoosiers won it all. None of those teams won the national championship.

A side note: interviewing Knight in August of 2012 remains one of the absolute highlights of this writer’s sports chronicling career.

Bob Knight tells stories of fishing, basketball to joy of Bozeman crowd

Yet here was Gonzaga — a private Jesuit school from Washington’s Inland Empire that didn’t make the NCAA Tournament for the first time until 1995 — on the brink of perfection.

The 1999 GU run to the Elite Eight led by memorable characters like Casey Calvary and Richie Fromm set the foundation of what would become one of the most unorthodox and impressive strings of success in college hoops history.

Since 1999, Gonzaga has won all but two West Coast Conference regular-season titles and all but two (2003 and 2010) WCC Tournament titles. GU has been to the Sweet 16 a total of 11 times since 1999, including the last six.

Even though Gonzaga made the Elite Eight in 2019 and its first Final Four two years earlier, even this Gonzaga team felt different.

GU entered this March Madness riding a 26-game winning streak that moved to 27 with the win over Norfolk State in the first round. We pulled up to Hinkle for the second time, admiring the symmetry of watching Gonzaga play in the home arena of Butler, the other and most recent mid-major Bulldogs who bulldogged their way into the Final Four two times in a row last decade.

In what would ultimately be the last game of Hall of Fame-bound Oklahoma head coach Lon Kruger, Gonzaga’s studs Jaylen Suggs and Drew Timme put on a show. Timme, one of the breakout stars of this tournament for his flatfooted dunking, handlebar mustache-pointing celebrations and consistent production, poured in 30 points and grabbed 13 rebounds. Oklahoma hung around but could not find the firepower to match Gonzaga as the top seed raced to an 87-71 win.

We watched the second half of the victory from press row while catching up with Spokane-area TV broadcaster Dennis Patchins and sportswriter Ryan Collingwood, the latter of whom was pulling double duty writing about Eastern Washington and Gonzaga for the Spokesman Review. We all agreed that we were pleasantly surprised that a third West Coast team was into the Sweet 16 before the fourth and final day of the first round was over.

And the hits kept coming. As we made our way back across town from Hinkle, we learned that UCLA would be in the Sweet 16 once again after downing Abilene Christian, 67-47. 

Colorado was the first Pac 12 team to stub its toe as Billings native Raequan Evans and the Florida State Seminoles marched into the Sweet 16 with a 71-53 win over the Buffs.

As we returned to Lucas Oil Stadium for one last game, Riley couldn’t help but feel strange about going to watch Michigan.

After all, perhaps the two most prominent games he’s called as “Voice of the Griz” over the last five years came in the 2018 and 2019 NCAA Tournaments when Montana drew the Wolverines in consecutive Big Dances.

We sat next to a local high school principal and rehashed some of those memories as Michigan took on LSU. We also set right below the Colts Ring of Honor homage to Eric Dickerson, a former NFL MVP running back who once was the guest speaker at the Triangle Classic Montana State football fundraiser in Great Falls, Montana.

The local principal asked us about the Grizzlies and about Dave Dickenson, the College Football Hall of Famer who quarterbacked Montana to its first Division I-AA national title. It just so happens that one of Michigan’s best players this season was freshman Hunter Dickinson, a 7-foot-1 phenom who will likely be an NBA Draft pick when he decides to declare.

The latest trend in college hoops is to hire a prominent former player as your head coach, as Michigan has done with former Fab Five member Juwan Howard, who became the head coach at his alma mater in 2019 following a 19-year playing career and six seasons as an assistant coach for the Miami Heat.

The 6-foot-9 Howard can be seen on the UM sidelines dictating the action but is rarely in the middle of the huddle. That’s where Phil Martelli comes in, drawing up plays and forming most of the in-game adjustments.

On this night, the Wolverines made enough adjustments to prevail with an 86-78 win over the Tigers to qualify for the Sweet 16 for the fourth straight year.

We pull off a little more radio magic for Monday’s show, broadcasting the first hour from our vacation rental, busting out the first segment of the second hour from the back of our driver Hussein’s gold Honda Accord and finishing the broadcast from our seats at Lucas Oil Stadium.

Following the end of the Michigan game, we needed to get to Hinkle Fieldhouse as soon as possible. After a quick to-go stop at a pizzeria on the Butler campus — Hussein promised to keep the pizza warm for us while we watched our 14^th and final game of the tournament — we arrived back at the mecca one last time.

All of a sudden, we were full circle. We walked around the first floor of Hinkle surrounded by a full wall mural laying out the Butler program’s rich history. It’s the same area where teams emerge from their locker rooms, the same area we gave Tinkle a fist bump on his way back onto the arena floor for the second half of what would be one of the most talked about first weekend wins of the tournament over OK State.

And we were in Hinkle one last time to watch USC, a Pac 12 power led by the Mobley brothers. The first games of this uncertain college basketball season came on November 25. Three nights later, Montana opened up its season with a 78-62 loss at USC. That marked the first game Riley had called following the catastrophic cancellations that altered the sporting world the previous spring.

The Trojans rarely lost the rest of the way, posting 25 wins and surging to a berth in the Elite Eight. Perhaps the most impactful win was the one we were about to witness.

Kansas is one of the most consistently contending programs in all of college basketball. The Jayhawks have advanced to 10 of the last 20 Elite Eights and five Final Fours since 2002, winning it all in 2008 and finishing as runner-up in 2003 and 2013.

USC was looking for its first Sweet 16 bid since 2007 and its first Elite Eight bid since 2001.

Previous tradition had zero influence on the result of our final game in Indianapolis. USC entered the contest as a one-point favorite. Instead, the Trojans handed the Jayhawks the most lopsided loss in the last 50 years of Kansas basketball.

Southern Cal certainly made the West Coast look like the best coast on the way to a dominant, statement-like 85-51 victory.

We walked out of the arena thinking that Eastern Washington gave Kansas a much better run than KU gave USC. And that Evan Mobley looked much more like the projected No. 2 overall draft pick than in previous times watching him. We also confirmed that we saw at least 13 projected first round picks and all three projected Top 3 picks during our jaunt through Indiana’s capital city.

From Oklahoma State’s Cade Cunningham to GU’s Suggs and Corey Kispert, to Mobely, Baylor’s Davion Mitchell and Jared Butler, Texas’ Greg Brown, Oregon’s Chris Duarte and Kai Jones, Michigan’s Franz Wagner, LSU’s Cameron Thomas, Tennessee’s Jaden Springer and Keon Johnson and Arkansas’ Moses Moody, we certainly saw at least as few future impact NBA players. 

The awesome runs of many of the teams we spent our weekend watching continued after we left Indianapolis. Gonzaga stayed red-hot, easily moving past Creighton and USC to reach its second-ever Final Four on a 30-game winning streak. Baylor looked formidable in solid wins over Villanova and Arkansas to claim its first NCAA Regional title since 1950.

Tinkle and the Beavers pulled one more upset, moving past Sister Jean and Loyola-Chicago. It also happens that Wayne’s father, Wayne Sr., was the vice president and dean of students at Loyola during Tinkle’s youth. This latest OSU win helped boost the Beavers into the Elite Eight before losing to Kelvin Sampson’s Cougars. 

Michigan ousted Evans and Florida State before running into UCLA, the tournament’s most scorching team after their 88-78 win over second-seeded Alabama.

The Final Four ended up featuring the West Coast’s most historically successful team (UCLA) losing on a Suggs bank shot at the buzzer and a Lone Star State matchup between the coach with Butte roots (Sampson) against a resurrected Baylor program that had arguably its best ever team playing out on the other side of the bracket. 

Throughout our time in Indianapolis, everyone around us seemed like they were wearing white shoes. But as the final buzzer of an atypical, unforgettable March sounded, the slipper did not quite fit for the Cinderella Gonzaga Bulldogs.

Instead, Baylor’s strength and athleticism powered the Bears to an 86-70 championship game victory in a contest that was never in doubt.

After a weekend in Indy and a March Madness ripe with Montana ties, the last team standing hailed from Waco,Texas, a basketball program with perhaps less direct connection to the Treasure State than any in the tournament field.

The day of our departure following the end of the second round, Hussein arrived to take us to the airport with homemade Somalian breakfast fry bread and homemade Somalian tea courtesy of his wife.

Throughout each ride, Hussein had held great conversation, immersing us in the history of the conflicts in East Africa and giving us his perspective on a divided America that has been torn apart by identity politics and differing pandemic mitigation strategies.

He reminded us that, no matter the current strife experienced by many Americans, the living situation in the U.S. is far superior to war-torn countries like the one he hails from.

When asked why he works driving cars outside his full-time white-collar job working in sales for Home Depot, Hussein simply said, “Forty hours is a short portion of your week. If I can make money on another business on the side, why would I not want to work hard to make a better life for my family?”

One of the most polarizing political issues currently in the United States centers upon immigration. And while there are valid arguments on both sides of the political spectrum, Hussein was a staunch example of the greatness that can come from freedom through hard work and relentless perseverance. One still can still turn a life of nothing into one that is prosperous, one that is filled with education and opportunity. 

Even with Gonzaga’s heartbreaking loss, I dwelled on the symbolism of the white shoes and that they somehow represented slippers. Everybody’s Cinderella did not leave the Big Dance as the big winner. 

As we snapped a photo with Hussein from the Indianapolis airport before finding our gate, I realized our new friend also wore white shoes, his made of patent leather. And then it struck me. 

The bell of the ball does not have to be the Cinderella who wins the Big Dance. Instead, Hussein is a great reminder that Cinderella stories are often not a fairytale at all but rather an affirmation of striving to be the best we can be.

MONTANANS IN THE MADNESS

PART I : WELCOME TO THE MOST UNIQUE BIG DANCE EVER

PART II – TINKLE THE CINDERELLA MAN

PART III – JACKIE MOON & NAPOLEON DYNAMITE MEET THE NATION

PART IV – A MILE HIGH, A MILE DEEP

PART V – WEST COAST CONNECTION

DAY 2 – Jackie Moon & Napoleon Dynamite light world on fire

At dinner Friday at a restaurant called “Bone & Broth” where the head chef was a recent winner of the popular cooking contest show “Hell’s Kitchen”, we sat with a couple who mourned while watching Purdue lose in real time. On Saturday during breakfast, we sat alone while watching former Northern Colorado head coach Tad Boyle lead the Colorado Buffs to a 96-73 win over Patrick Ewing’s Georgetown Hoyas.

RayQuan Evans led Billings Skyview to Class AA state titles as a sophomore and a junior, earning a reputation as a bullish, aggressive downhill guard with Division I potential during his prep days in Montana. But grades issues kept him from following in his father, Israel’s, footsteps by playing for Montana.

After initially committing to Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Evans ended up going to North Idaho College in Coeur d’Alene. While in the middle of a breakout second season at NIC, a now widely circulated picture of Evans talking to Ewing, an NBA Hall of Fame center for the New York Knicks during his playing career and one of Georgetown’s most famed alums, began to make the rounds on social media. 

That sparked Evans’ recruiting, helping him earn offers from Larry Krystkowiak at Utah, Ewing’s Hoyas and eventually Leonard Hamilton at Florida State.

Evans, a senior starter for the Seminoles, scored just one point but fourth-seeded FSU moved into the second round with a 64-54 win over UNC-Greensboro before we made our way to our first live game of the day. 

And so began a day of basketball that would soon be defined by a pair of goofy, lovable brothers who happened to be from the Big Sky Conference.

Both of those finals were in the books while the Groves Bros tried to help Eastern break the Big Sky’s Big Dance drought.

Eastern Washington stumbled down the regular-season stretch, losing at Idaho State, a defeat that cost the Eagles the outright Big Sky championship. Instead, Southern Utah claimed its first league title in its second-to-last year in the league. The Thunderbirds will exit the Big Sky Conference following the upcoming fall semester to join the Western Athletic Conference.

But Montana State knocked out Southern Utah in overtime in the semifinals of this year’s Big Sky Tournament, earning a championship game bid for the first time in 12 years.

The MSU run was the first notable breakthrough of Danny Sprinkle’s tenure leading his alma mater. The second-year head coach was one of Montana State’s most popular athletes as a player. He was the 1996 Big Sky Tournament MVP after leading the Bobcats to their most recent NCAA Tournament appearance. A generation later, Sprinkle helped the Bobcats knock out the tournament’s top seed and advance to the first BSC title game not featuring Montana or Weber State since 2009.

Meanwhile, Montana knocked out third-seeded Weber State in the quarterfinals, further extending the narrative that WSU 16^th-year head coach Randy Rahe just can’t beat the Griz, particularly in Missoula or in the postseason.

That set up a third straight conference tournament matchup between Montana and Eastern Washington and the fourth in six postseasons dating back to when EWU won the last non-neutral site tournament, earning the 2015 title on UM’s home floor.

The next two EWU vs. UM postseason matchups came in the finals of the 2018 and 2019 Big Sky Tournament, respectively. The Griz won both, advancing to the NCAA Tournament in consecutive seasons. Before the pandemic caused the cancellation of the 2020 Big Sky Tournament entering the quarterfinal round, Montana was the only team to sweep the outright league champions from EWU.

But this March, Eastern dismantled Montana three times in a row, including a 78-50 decimation of the Grizzlies in the semifinals of the most recent league tourney. The loss marked the largest margin of defeat in head coach Travis

DeCuire’s seven seasons as the head coach of his alma mater. In fact, the 28-point loss doubled the previous largest loss; both of those 14-point defeats came at the hands of the Eagles during the most recent regular-season.

DeCuire’s seven seasons as the head coach of his alma mater. In fact, the 28-point loss doubled the previous largest loss; both of those 14-point defeats came at the hands of the Eagles during the most recent regular-season.

EWU had little trouble with Northern Arizona or Montana in the tournament. In the championship game against MSU, Eastern opened up a 20-point first-half lead and cruised to its third conference tournament title in school history.

The Big Sky Conference has the longest drought between NCAA Tournament victories of any of the 32 conferences competing in Division I men’s basketball. UM’s win over Nevada in the 2006 tournament marks the last time a Big Sky team won a game in the Big Dance.

More often than not, the Big Sky champion draws an unfavorable seed and the subsequent unfavorable matchup that goes with it. And that appeared to be EWU’s fortune initially when the Eagles drew Kansas, one of the storied programs in college hoops history. 

Behind the outstanding play of the stellar play of junior center Tanner Groves, the Big Sky’s regular-season and tournament MVP, and his sophomore brother, Jacob Groves, EWU led at halftime and had the upper hand by double figures twice in the second half.

Tanner Groves poured in 35 points, the most points ever scored by a Big Sky player in the NCAA Tournament, surpassing Eric Hays’ 32-point effort in Montana’s 67-64 loss to UCLA in 1975.

Montana’s loss to UCLA in the Sweet 16 marked the first time a Griz or Big Sky team had advanced that far. Two years later, Idaho State became the first, last and only Big Sky squad to win a pair of games in a single NCAA Tournament.

Jacob Groves added 23 points and the Eagles hung with one of college basketball’s most successful brands.

Those performances caused for an already heart warming story to go viral. Tanner Groves gained traction as a Jackie Moon lookalike, a reference to the Will Ferrell comedy Semi-Pro featuring a hoops star with that name. And Jacob Groves earned comparisons to Napoleon Dynamite, the star character of a comedy by the same name about an awkward, hilarious teenager growing up in rural Idaho.

Because of limitations on media credentials due to Covid-19 protocol, the Spokane media filled up the five media spots for EWU’s press corps. So we did not get press credentials. Instead, we found a way to get tickets to sit in Eastern’s parents/family section.

That section cheered on the Eagles’ effort passionately throughout the game. But late, Kansas caught fire from beyond the arc and Eastern couldn’t keep up, falling 93-84 at Indiana Farmers Coliseum.

The scene at Farmers was interesting considering there were significantly more fans there than when we saw suitless Jay Wright and Villanova the night before. Many wore Boilermaker black and rooted passionately against the Jayhawks. Purdue, after all, had been bounced less than 24 hours before.

That became a theme – tracking the fans of teams with Final Four dreams who had their hearts broken earlier than expected. Illinois, Purdue, Iowa and Texas all went from optimistic to devastated before the weekend even reached its end. 

After a lengthy Uber ride where we thought for several minutes we were lost, we arrived for our first full game at Lucas Oil Stadium. Fifth-seeded Creighton and No. 12 UC-Santa Barbara did not disappoint. Creighton has 21 NCAA Tournament appearances, including 12 since 2000. The Bluejays have advanced to the second round five times since 2002, including this season as they survived for a 63-62 victory over USCB.

Despite Creighton’s prestige coming into the tournament, the Gauchos were a popular upset pick. And Santa Barbara — a team that scored 91 points in a 22-point win against a Brian Fish-coached Montana State squad in 2017 in UCSB’s last trip to the Treasure State — almost proved those bettors right. 

We arrived back at Lucas Oil for a second time on this day, this time sitting in the corner for No. 8 seed Oklahoma against No. 9 Missouri. The Tigers have some ties back to the West Coast; Cuonzo Martin, Missouri’s head coach, was hired as the head coach at Cal leading up to the 2014 season following the retirement of Mike Montgomery, the former Griz head coach.

DeCuire had been an assistant on Montgomery’s staff from 2008 until 2014 and was in the mix to replace one of his mentors before Martin landed the gig.

While the eighth-seeded Sooners held on for a 72-68 win over Martin and Mizzou in what would prove to be the 674th and last win of revered OU head coach Lon Kruger, top-seeded Gonzaga continued working on history.

The Zags blasted upstart Norfolk State, posting a 98-55 victory over the MEAC champion. We monitored that victory, Gonzaga’s 27th to that point, and the UCLA 73-62 win over BYU while eating wings and drinking gin at the Slippery Noodle, a bar you have to imagine Jim Harbaugh popped into at least once during his time as the starting quarterback for the Colts. 

While at Lucas Oil watching a former Big XII intra-conference matchup between Sooners and the now SEC-affiliated Tigers, we started researching our nightcap. Riley found a nondescript pair of admittance vouchers that did not in fact indicate specific seats.

On the day Wentz arrived in Indianapolis, we found ourselves on the third floor of the Colts’ arena in the Lucas Oil Quarterback Suite. We didn’t realize the affiliation of the people in the box until Abilene Christian — a former Division II power located in Abilene, Texas (population: 120,000) before moving up to Division I in 2013 — started pushing the third-seeded Texas Longhorns.

In the second half, Abilene scored a go-ahead bucket in a slugfest of a contest with countless lead changes. As we feasted on the fish tacos, snacks, desserts and drinks provided as part of the suite perks, we started to realize most of the people in the box were strongly affiliated with UT. Our cheering ceased.

Following Abilene’s 53-52 upset of UT, marking just the 21^st time in tournament history a 14 seed took down a No. 3 seed, we tracked down an Uber. But this ride would alter the rest of our Indianapolis experience.

MONTANAS IN MADNESS

PART I : Welcome to the most unique Big Dance ever

PART II – TINKLE THE CINDERELLA MAN – THURSDAY JULY 1

PART III – JACKIE MOON & NAPOLEON DYNAMITE MEET THE NATION – JULY 2

PART IV – A MILE HIGH, A MILE DEEP – SATURDAY JULY 3

PART V – WEST COAST CONNECTION – SATURDAY JULY 4

The Eagles led for 20:47 compared to 18:07 for the Jayhawks, who were ranked 12th nationally in the Associated Press top 25 poll entering the game. Eastern’s Covid-19 impacted season ended with a 16-8 record overall.

“I don’t believe in moral victories, but today was one of those times where I told the team this was a moral victory for them,” said Eastern head coach Shantay Legans. “They played amazing, great and hard, and played toe-to-toe with one of the best programs in the county. America was able to see that, and we saw our team go out and compete against some of the best players in the country. You have to be proud of our guys, and I was today.”

The Groves Bros combined for 58 points on 19-of-29 shooting a week after both were named to the All-Tournament team at the Big Sky Conference Tournament. They led EWU to the title and into EWU’s third NCAA Tournament, but EWU’s quest for the first victory by a No. 14 seed since 2016 and an attempt to end a 13-game losing streak in the tourney by the Big Sky came up short.

“It’s an unbelievable stage and it’s great for them because they are terrific humans. It is fun to coach them and see them end the season on a high note,” said Legans.

“Even though we didn’t win, they played great basketball. You’d have to search to find two brothers to ever both get over 20 (pts) in the same game in the NCAA Tournament. We are proud of them and they are right there in our backyard. They were un-recruited and played great against some of the top players in the nation. They did a great job.”

Eastern out-shot Kansas 50 percent to 48 percent, and equaled the Jayhawks on the boards 33-33. The difference in the game was offensive rebounds (10 for Kansas, five for Eastern) and turnovers (13 for Eastern, six for Kansas). The result were advantages for KU of 13-2 in second-chance points and 12-7 in points off turnovers.

“I wish we could have pulled this one out – we had opportunities,” said Legans. “We missed on some things, and Kansas made plays when we didn’t. That part hurts, but I couldn’t be more proud of our university and this team. They played amazing.”

Kansas will play the winner of the No. 6 USC versus No. 11 Drake game which followed EWU’s contest. USC is now 22-7 and Drake is 26-4. The second-round game will be played on Monday, March 22 at a time and venue to be announced. The game will be broadcast by either CBS, TBS, TNT or Tru TV.

Eastern was making its third NCAA Tournament appearance, and is now 0-3 in opening round games. The first appearance came under head coach Ray Giacoletti on March 19, 2004, when the Eagles fell to No. 3-ranked and No. 2-seeded Oklahoma State 75-56 in Kansas City, Mo. Eastern returned 14 years later under head coach Jim Hayford, and fell to  #22/#4 Georgetown 84-74 in Portland, Ore., on March 19, 2015.

The Eagles arrived in Indianapolis on March 14 fresh off of winning the title at the Big Sky Conference Championship, then watched the selection show as a team. Eastern then spent a day undergoing two rounds of Covid-19 testing and quarantining in their hotel. Finally, EWU was able to begin a week of practices at the Indiana Convention Center on Monday, March 15, in preparation of their match-up with one of college basketball’s most successful programs.

“We’ll come back stronger, come back smarter and come back hungrier. We have the ingredients, but we just have to come back and do it better. We have to be proud of everybody in our program – everybody came up big all year and gave us opportunities to play and had us ready all year along. You have to be happy for the entire program. We have a young team and will have back players with experience. I’m excited about the future of our program and where it’s going.”

Press release courtesy of Dave Cook – Eastern Washington Sports Information. Photos courtesy of Eastern Washington Athletics. All Rights Reserved.

The supreme court jester and confidence-instilling, energetically motivating head coach has his Eastern Washington Eagles cranked to the maximum enthusiasm at pretty much all times during any given game.

When Legans turned to his exuberant bench as his team was closing in on punching a ticket to the Big Dance, the feeling was different.

As the final seconds ticked away with second-seeded EWU in control against No. 5 Montana State, Legans took time to immerse himself in the moment, enrapturing himself within the embrace of his entire team.

Eastern Washington’s fourth-year head coach had guided the Eagles to the Big Sky Conference Tournament championship the last two times the event reached its completion, only to lose to rival Montana each time.

As Legans could feel the Eagles had a punched ticket to the Big Dance in hand, he pulled away from the scrum of his players, turned to the smattering of Eastern Washington fans on hand at Idaho Central Arena, passionately screamed to them, then twice more by himself before opening up his arms for another hug, this one with Montana State head coach Danny Sprinkle.

The Eagles are going dancing for the first time since 2015 thanks to a lightning-fast start and a gritty finish to outlast the upstart Bobcats, 65-55, in the Big Sky Tournament championship game on Saturday night in Idaho’s capital city.

“As the clock was winding down, we had the two stop and the last two times here, me and Kim (Aiken, EWU all-league forward), watched Montana celebrate. We told ourselves we would be back here. I told him we would be here multiple times. The emotions were running through me and when I was giving the interview with ESPN, celebrating, I couldn’t be happier,” Legans said.

“It was one of the best moments of my basketball career watching these guys celebrate.”

Last season, EWU surged to a 16-4 mark in Big Sky Conference play to win the program’s first outright league regular-season title in 15 years. After losing consecutive championship games to Montana, EWU appeared primed to chase and earn the program’s third-ever trip to the NCAA Tournament. Then the global pandemic hit.

The Eagles were in the driver’s seat to repeat as regular-season champions and win the fourth Big Sky regular-season banner after a nine-game winning streak that included sweeping the Montana schools this winter. But EWU stubbed its toe the second to last game of the season, losing to Idaho State at home, a defeat that ultimately cost Eastern a banner and the top seed.

That misstep might’ve actually motivated the Eagles. EWU outlasted upstart No. 10 seed Northern Arizona on Thursday in the quarterfinals and decimated the Grizzlies 78-50 in a game that wasn’t even that close on Friday to earn a third straight league tournament championship game appearance.

Then came Saturday, a contest that at first looked like a coronation as EWU built 20-3 and 29-9 leads but then took significant fortitude to outlast a hungry, tough and athletic Bobcat team that did not give up despite falling behind early.

“To win this is very exciting, very emotional because you know you’ve been in this position before and not won,” said Aiken, a first-year All-Big Sky selection and the BSC Defensive Player of the Year. “We’ve been in this position twice. Tonight was an opportunity to go out there and prove we can be champions and go to the NCAA Tournament.”

A year to the day after the sports world stopped turning, Eastern looked electric, driven and like a team of destiny in busting out to a 20-3 lead over a Bobcat squad that had upset Southern Utah, the tournament’s top seed, in overtime less than 24 hours before.

Eastern converted 11 of its first 18 field goal attempts and held a 20-point lead with eight minutes left in the first half. For a good portion of the first half, Saturday’s championship looked like a sequel to EWU’s ripping of Montana, a contest in which the Eagles led 44-15 at halftime before pushing the advantage to 38 points before calling off the dogs against the defending tournament champions.

“They are as good an offensive team as there is in a mid-major level,” MSU head coach Danny Sprinkle said. “They were hard for Arizona and St. Mary’s to stop, too. They’ve done a heck of a job recruiting and developing those guys.”

Instead, the Bobcats closed the first half by trailing 38-24, then continued to chip away. Amin Adamu, MSU’s senior southpaw guard who earned All-Tournament honors thanks in part to his 29 points and clutch steal against Southern Utah, suffered a knee to the thigh on the second possession of the game and never found any flow after, finishing with six points and zero rebounds.

When Jacob Groves, Tanner’s younger brother, hit a 3-pointer with 14:13 left to put EWU up 49-32, it appeared the route was on. But MSU answered with a 9-2 run capped by a Nick Gazelas 3-pointer — MSU shot 34.5 percent from the floor, including just 2-of-17 from beyond the arc — to get the deficit to 51-41 with 10 minutes left.

Montana State did not get the gap to single digits until a pair of Abdul Mohamed free throws with 4:41 left and it only stayed in single figures for one possession. But a team making its first championship game appearance in 12 years under a head coach navigating his first tournament in that role never quit.

“Eastern Washington is a really good team and they made big plays all night,” Sprinkle said. “Their pace, they didn’t look tired and we looked tired.

“They jumped us early and I credit our guys, we fought back. That was a game where a lot of teams get beat by 35.”

During Sprinkle’s career as a player, the Helena native earned Big Sky tournament MVP honors as a true freshman by shooting the Bobcats to their most recent NCAA Tournament appearance in 1996. During his playing career, Sprinkle contributed to five Big Sky Tournament victories. After he graduated in 1999, MSU won just three conference tournament games since.

In 2009, the Bobcats beat Montana in Missoula and upset Weber State before losing to host Portland State in the championship game. The only other postseason win for the Bobcats came two years ago here when the Bobcats beat bottom-seeded Idaho to snap a nearly decade-long tournament drought.

This week, Montana State showed newfound toughness in gutting out a 71-63 win over No. 4 Idaho State in the quarterfinals. Then the Bobcats employed tremendous resolve to gut out an 80-77 overtime victory over Southern Utah.

“Coach Sprinkle does a great job with his team,” Legans added. “Second year in the league and he has his team in the league championship game. That’s great coaching.”

MSU looked shell-shocked for the first 10 minutes of the game Saturday before settling in. The resurgence within the game showed a reinvigorated sense of toughness by the Bobcats. MSU’s roster includes seniors Adamu, point guard Xavier Bishop, center Devin Kirby and swingman Abdul Mohamed.

On Twitter, Kirby said – “This season was a ride; I can’t begin to express how thankful I am for all your love and support this season. Thank you ALL for allowing me to represent your university in the Blue & Gold. These past five years have meant more to me than you know. Forever a Bobcat.”

Groves accentuated his Big Sky regular-season MVP with a tournament most valuable player honor. He averaged 15.6 points and 10 rebounds per game during the tournament to lead his team to a ticket.

Groves and his brother, Jacob, each earned All-Tournament honors.

“It’s unbelievable, something brothers dream about,” Groves said. “Since Jake and I were little, we always dreamed playing on the biggest stage of college basketball and to do it together, it’s unbelievable.”

The Eagles now turn their attention to next week’s NCAA Tournament. As of March 10, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi projected Eastern Washington as a No. 14 seed.

“When I turned, I told them I loved them,” Legans said. “We’ve spent so much time together. I get on these guys but they know it’s out of love. It’s so much of a family with us.

“I have friends in the business that have never played in the NCAA Tournament. These guys on my team, they’ve advanced to the championship game every year. But I want to keep saying it – you can say this, this and this, ‘we will get to it next year’, but some coaches, most coaches, most players, they never get there. Now we are going. When I saw how happy they were, that made my day.”

Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.

Montana State’s season ends after reaching the tournament championship game for the first time since 2009.

Following the game, Eastern Washington head coach Shantay Legans, along with juniors Kim Aiken Jr. (left) and tournament MVP Tanner Groves plus Montana State head coach Danny Sprinkle, junior center Jubrile Belo (left) and senior Abdul Mohamed addressed the media.

The Big Sky Conference men’s basketball tournament has been played here for the last three years inside an arena that is in the center of Boise’s Grove hotel.

In Friday’s second semifinal game, Eastern Washington junior Tanner Groves, the Big Sky regular-season MVP, and his sophomore brother Jacob Groves scored the first 13 points as the Eagles raced to an early 10-point lead over suddenly surging Montana.

And unlike the two regular-season matchups between the Eags and the Grizzlies, the Groves brothers and their teammates did not let up until deep into the second half.

In EWU’s 90-76 wins over Montana during the regular season, Eastern built leads of at least 20 points in the first half.

Friday, Tanner and Jacob helped lead a charge that saw EWU push the lead to as many as 38 points as second-seeded Eastern Washington poured it on their bitter rival in a 78-50 victory to advance to the Big Sky Tournament championship game.

The Eagles will take on fifth-seeded Montana State at 6 p.m. on Saturday night.

“Our defense in that first half was huge,” EWU head coach Shantay Legans said. “To beat a team like that in that fashion with all the chips on the table and pushing for pride trying to get to the championship game, you are playing for everything.

“This team beat us twice in this tournament. We hear it. Our guys keep hearing it. It wasn’t that hard to get excited for this game.”

Jacob Groves hit a jumper with 12 minutes, 53 seconds left before taking a seat with a career-high 21 points on 10-of-13 shooting. A little more than six minutes later, Tanner Groves swatted a shot out of bounds before taking a seat, finishing with 18 points and four rebounds.

When Tanner finished his evening, the Groves brothers led Montana 39-33 and EWU held a 68-33 lead. A 3-pointer by Montana sophomore Kyle Owens with 5:34 left finally helped the overmatched Griz surpass the EWU brothers’ scoring total.

“It feels pretty cool,” Tanner Groves said. “I’ve been playing with this guy since I was really young and it’s really cool that I can play with him in such a big game like today. It’s pretty cool and something that doesn’t happen too often.”

“We’ve worked for it, we’ve have spent a lot of hours in the gym and in the driveway trying to get better,” Tanner Groves said. “Shoutout to our teammates for finding us and finding the mismatches on the court. We really focused on that in practice and talking about it on the film, finding mismatches against Montana.”

Montana has broken Eastern Washington’s hearts in the postseason recently, including defeating the Eagles in the two most recently played Big Sky Tournament championship games in March of 2018 and 2019, respectively.

Even last season, when EWU raced to its first outright Big Sky title in more than a decade, Montana swept Eastern in the regular season. Last season’s tournament was cancelled before either EWU or UM got in a game.

This season, the Eagles did not forget any of that past. In the matchup in Cheney, EWU converted 13 consecutive field goals and 17 out of 19 while racing to a 47-20 lead. In Missoula two days later, EWU executed at a high level in building a 49-27 halftime lead.

Friday, Eastern shot 61 percent in the first half while holding the Grizzlies to 21 percent shooting on the way to building a 44-15 lead at the break. When Tyler Robertson hit a turn-around jumper in the paint with 12:17 left, EWU led 63-25, the largest gap in the game to eliminate a team that entered the semifinal on a Big Sky Tournament-record eight-game winning streak.

The Groves brothers combined to convert 18 shots in 27 attempts, including making three of five from beyond the arc. Robertson scored nine points while first-team all-league forward Kim Aiken Jr. had eight points to go with 10 rebounds.

“We had the best player on the floor,” Legans said. “We can throw the ball into Tanner and they can’t stop him. I told our guys that Montana didn’t get bigger, they didn’t get taller so they had to decide if they were going to double or not.

“Tanner was letting the game come to him and then stepped it up. Then his little brother stepped up and played really good. When you have these two guys playing well, there’s so many guys who can have big games for our team.”

Aiken, the Big Sky Defensive Player of the Year, also spearheaded an effort that saw EWU bait the Griz into shooting jump shots instead of attacking the rim. Montana shot 34.5 percent from the floor and made just 5-of-23 from beyond the arc. Eastern out-rebounded Montana 40-25.

“Our defense in that first half was huge,” Legans said.

BOX SCORE

Montana’s season was a grind from the beginning. A team featuring nine new players lost a pair of one-point decisions at Southern Utah in their second and third games of the year. UM stumbled to a 2-5 start to league play thanks to losses in the final minute to Northern Colorado and Southern Utah.

The Grizzlies earned a road sweep at Idaho State to enter the tournament as the No. 6 seed. Montana seemed to have turned a corner by outlasting Idaho in the first round on Wednesday and ripping No. 3 Weber State in the quarterfinals on Thursday night.

It all came to a halt on Friday night.

“That’s a tough one and they have had our number this year, obviously,” UM seventh-year head coach Travis DeCuire. “One of the things I’ve learned here in recent times and at other programs before returning to Montana, once you have achieved the goal of attaining championships and being at the top of the standings, it’s hard to maintain and sustain that success.

“With a young group, that’s what we are experiencing. I remember in 2016 the season we had and the group we had like this that ended like this and I remember the off-season we had that led to the runs in 2018 and 2019. When you have a young team that runs into a road block, you learn from it. And you learn more from wins than losses.”

Outside of junior reserve point guard Cam Parker’s 15 points on 7-of-10 shooting, the rest of the Griz went 13-of-48 (27 percent). EWU held Owens, UM’s leading scorer, to seven points on 2-of-8 shooting. Robby Beasley III, a true freshman who poured in 23 points on Thursday against Weber, was held to 2-of-6 on the way to five points.

“Groves is a great player, Aiken is a great player and when they post up, they have bigger guys but tonight was about their defense and our offensive execution,” Parker said. “They are a great team that run a really good offense.”

UM junior Mack Anderson finished his strong tournament stretch by scoring nine points but did not get a rebound. Freshman Josh Bannan led the Griz with 10 boards but finished just 1-of-8 from the floor on the way to two points.

“This was not the way we expected to represent the Griz but there’s always a sign of the future in terms growth,” DeCuire said. “We had it handed to us today. And for me, I’ve always thought of that as an experience for growth. We were exposed in this matchup and that will help us grow.”

Eastern Washington moves into the championship game for the fourth time since 2015, including the third year in a row in terms of championships that have been played. EWU will take on a Bobcat team coming off a thrilling, emotional 80-77 overtime win over top-seeded Southern Utah.

“They are going to bring their all because everything is out there,” Legans said. “They are a really good team. They have three all-league guys on their team. Their big guy (Jubrile Belo) is a really good player who’s had double doubles and 30 points in multiple games. They have a point guard who’s dynamic (Xavier Bishop) who makes plays and gets down hill. And then they have (Amin Adamu) who is so athletic and can hit 3s. We have to be ready.”

Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.

EWU lost to the Grizzlies in consecutive tournament title games but beat UM three times in row this season. Jacob Groves scored 21 points, Tanner Groves added 18 points and the Eagles won going away.

Following the game, EWU head coach Shantay Legans, Tanner Groves (left) and Jacob Groves along with Montana head coach Travis DeCuire and junior Cam Parker addressed the media.