OGDEN, Utah—Montana’s route back to the Big Sky championship game included a blown 14-point lead and 14 turnovers.
The Grizzlies played well enough down the stretch to overcome their earlier errors, scoring the final six points in a 68-63 win over Northern Colorado on Tuesday night in the Big Sky Conference tournament semifinals.
Northern Colorado, the tournament’s No. 2 seed, ate away Montana’s lead with a 17-3 run over four minutes late in the second half and set up the big finish. Unfortunately for the Bears, the Grizzlies (21-9) finished bigger and advanced to Wednesday’s championship game for the first time since winning it in 2006.
“We’ve had our share of close ballgames,” Montana coach Wayne Tinkle said. “I’m proud of our guys for squashing that run and handling it well.”
On Wednesday, the Grizzlies will face Big Sky top seed Weber State, a 69-60 winner over Portland State in Tuesday’s second semifinal.
Anthony Johnson scored 19 and Will Cherry added 10 points, including a clutch jumper that put Montana up by three with 24 seconds left.
“We have a tendency to go up 15 and kind of relax and take our foot off the pedals,” Cherry said. “That’s what happened today. We’ve lost a lot of close games like that but today we were able to pull through.”
Ryan Staudacher also finished with 10 points and Derek Selvig and Vassy Banny pulled down eight rebounds apiece for Montana.
Will Figures led the Bears (24-7) with 23 points, including back-to-back 3-pointers to lead Northern Colorado’s late rally. He tied it at 60 on a layup with less than four minutes to play and the Bears even took a lead in the final two minutes, but couldn’t hang on for their first postseason win as an NCAA Division I team.
This is just the third season the Bears have been eligible for the postseason since jumping to the top division, and Northern Colorado had plenty of chances to win Tuesday. But the Bears couldn’t overcome a 36-25 rebounding deficit.
“No question. They manhandled us on the boards,” Northern Colorado coach Tad Boyle said. “They’re awfully tall in there.”
The Grizzlies’ size advantage showed in the final minute when they were finally able to stop Figures when he tried to drive through traffic in the lane with Montana up 64-63. Figures’ layup attempt missed and there was no foul called despite protests from the Bears’ bench.
Banny was there to grab the rebound and the Grizzlies chose to run down the clock with just a one-point lead. Cherry dribbled away the final seconds on the shot clock before pulling up for a jumper that just beat the buzzer and put Montana up 66-63 with 24 seconds left.
Montana added two free throws in the final seconds to wrap it up.
The Bears fell to 0-2 in Division I postseason games, but may not be done this season. Boyle was hopeful that Northern Colorado could get a bid to the NIT and another chance at winning 25 games for the first time in school history.
