GREELEY, Colo.—Through its first 19 games Montana was unable to put enough teams away to be a winning team. It might have taken a game with Northern Colorado to turn that around.
“We’ve done good enough to hang in there until the end, but we’ve lost five games in the last minute by missing free throws, turning it over and we’ve felt snake bit because of it,” Montana coach Wayne Tinkle said. “We preached to stay positive and knew the way to turn it around was to continue to show energy and focus.”
Jordan Hasquet scored 16 points and Ceylon Elgin-Taylor added 13 as Montana responded to the coach in matching its longest winning streak of the season with a 71-60 victory over Northern Colorado Saturday night.
“We’ve lost a couple of league games where we’ve had leads at halftime and teams turned it around on us when we hit a wall in the second half,” Hasquet said. “Tonight might be the game where we’ve have turned that around.”
Andrew Strait contributed 12 points and 12 rebounds for Montana (9-11, 3-4 Big Sky). The Grizzlies won two consecutive games for the third time this season and beat Northern Colorado for a fifth consecutive time.
Jabril Banks had 16 points for Northern Colorado (8-12, 2-6). Will Figures had 13 points as the Bears lost their fourth straight.
“We’ve had our problems like they have where we don’t put together two good halves,” Banks said. “During this one we couldn’t get shots to fall in the first half, but turned up our aggressiveness and played better in the second half.”
Northern Colorado reduced its 17-point halftime deficit to 48-38 when Figures capped a 9-2 run with a layup with 10:42 to play, but Hasquet answered by burying a 3-pointer to make it a 53-38 game.
Two free throws by Figures got the Bears back to 53-43 with 7:33 remaining only to have Strait hit two hook shots over Taylor Montgomery.
“That’s what we didn’t do in last-minute losses to Northern Arizona, Weber State and Idaho State,” Elgin-Taylor said. “Tonight we withstood their late run and made plays and shots.”
Figures hit a 3-pointer with 2:18 remaining that reduced Montana’s lead to 59-50. The lead was too much for Northern Colorado to overcome.
“We played so much better in the second half and it was our mental focus,” Northern Colorado coach Tad Boyle said. “We lost Hasquet a couple of times in transition a couple of times in the first half and he made us play with wide open 3s.
“We didn’t make those mistakes in the second half,” Boyle said. “We were much more sound defensively and rebounded the ball better.”
Montana held the Bears without a field goal for nearly six minutes to start the game while building a 14-1 lead. Banks ended the drought with 14:20 left, but Hasquet had two 3-pointers the rest of the half and Montana shot 52 percent in the period to help the Grizzlies hold a 39-22 advantage at the break.
Montana also held a 22-14 rebounding edge and limited the Bears to 28 percent shooting.
