Montana Grizzlies collect season-altering win at Portland State after heart-to-heart talk

The Grizzlies responded two days later with a 73-67 road win at Portland State despite being shorthanded and playing just eight players. It was a cathartic victory after they blew final-minute leads against Weber State and Montana State in recent weeks and were in danger of doing that Saturday.

The win snapped a season-long three-game losing streak and injected life back into their outlook this season. They improved to 4-6 in Big Sky play and moved up to sixth place in the standings with the victory to open the second half of conference action.

"We hadn’t been playing together, we hadn’t been trusting one another," Montana coach Travis DeCuire said in his postgame radio interview. "We’d been trying to make plays, especially when things got tough, I think everyone wanted to be the guy instead of trusting others to make plays.

"So, we spent about 36 hours almost looking each other in the face and telling each other the truth, doing what families do: fight a little bit, argue a little bit, cry a little bit and then come together and hug it out and then try to execute."

"I think (Josh) Bannan set the tone the way he spread the ball around early. Dischon (Thomas) set the tone the way he defended. Those are the two big things for us to be a unit is that those two guys need to be more consistent in those two areas. I think that’s why everybody else fell in place."

The Griz spent Friday's practice focusing on themselves, in particular working on picking up slips and switches on screens. It's something DeCuire felt they struggled with as a ball-dominant team, but they executed it Saturday to the tune of a season-high 20 assists, with Thomas and Bannan combining for 12.

Thomas, a Colorado State transfer, put together one of the best games of his college career as the Griz played through their bigs. His 25 points, six assists and three blocks were all career highs, while his five made 3-pointers tied a personal best.

Josh Bannan, a preseason All-Big Sky selection, matched his career high with six assists. He added 17 points and 11 rebounds for his sixth double-double this year before he fouled out in 36 minutes of action.

"It was the best we’ve executed against it," DeCuire said of the screens. "A lot of it is trust. You don’t know who’s going to come open. We got to cut the way we got to cut and you just got to make reads. Dischon is really good at reading slips and things like that. Bannan ... too. We just played through the posts quite a bit and I thought it exposed the switch."

During that Thursday talk, Bannan reminded the team of how they started conference play 8-2 last season but closed 3-7, including 2-5 following an injury to forward Mack Anderson. They saw how things can go south quick although they looked good early in the year, so now they had to realize they had time to turn around what might have looked like a death sentence at 3-6.

That alteration began Saturday despite Anderson missing his second straight game while wearing a boot on his left foot. The Griz still outrebounded the Vikings 33-31 after being outrebounded 35-19 at Sacramento State.

They were also missing top 3-pointer shooter Aanen Moody, who was out with a concussion, according to the radio broadcast. Again, the Griz rose up and made 10 triples, their fourth most this season, on 25 attempts (40.0%).

It was a crucial win because a loss would've kept the Griz at No. 7 in the standings and put them two games behind the No. 6 team in the loss column. In the league's new format, seeds three through six get a bye to the quarterfinals, while seeds seven through 10 play each other in the first round and then have to face the first or second seed in the quarterfinals.

"You want to play your best basketball in February and then that carries into March," DeCuire said. "For us, it’s play the right way. I could care less about scoreboard right now. Just play the right way and then the rest of it will take care of itself. We did that tonight. We know what it feels like."

Thomas rose up early with three blocks in the first three minutes as the Griz have been working on him improving his defense. He hit three early 3-pointers, the second of which put them up 19-16 with 10:34 left in the half. That gave them more points than the 17 they scored in the entire second half of their 67-48 loss at Sacramento State.

The Griz held PSU without a field goal in the final 5:31 of the half and took their first double-digit lead when Lonnell Martin Jr. converted an and-1 for a 38-27 halftime score. Thomas pushed the lead to a game-high 15 points, 44-29, when he made his fourth 3-pointer 1:38 into the second half.

"Tonight is one of the games, we’ve had a couple others, where his defense was his motor," DeCuire said. "When he started the game off playing hard, blocking shots and walling — even the early foul he got was a good foul — and the rest took care of itself. He wasn’t worried about getting shots. What happens is you end up with the ball."

After going up 15, the Griz lead fluctuated between five and 11 points until a 6-0 Portland State run cut UM's advantage to 66-64 with 1:50 to play. Dischon and Bannan combined once again as the former fired a bullet to the latter for a wide-open dunk with 86 ticks remaining.

Bannan totaled 10 points and two assists in the second half after he had seven points and four helpers in the first. He fouled out with 36.2 seconds left and the Griz up 68-64. He committed just two turnovers despite increased ball handling duties in ball-screen and isolation situations.

"That’s what a Josh Bannan game should look like," DeCuire said. "I don’t know that it looks like that every night, but just the style of play and the way we share the ball and the way we play together, the way they came together in huddles, that needs to be every night."

Senior forward Josh Vazquez stepped up after Bannan fouled out to seal the win. He made all four of his free throw attempts in the final 12 seconds to turn a 69-67 lead into the six-point victory. He finished with 17 points and three assists.

Junior forward Laolu Oke, an NCAA Division II transfer, had the Grizzlies' best plus-minus rating at plus-19 points before he fouled out in 19 minutes. Martin added 10 points and four assists. Brandon Whitney had two points in 20 minutes after two early fouls.

Former Grizzly Cameron Parker finished with 21 points, 10 assists, three rebounds and two steals in his first game against his previous team. His assist on Isaiah Johnson's layup brought PSU within 69-67 with 0:14 left, but Johnson then committed an offensive foul in between Vazquez's trips to the charity stripe.

"Some guys that hadn’t had opportunities were going to have to step up," DeCuire said. "If one of those guys stepped up and had a good game, I thought we’d have a chance. Lu (Oke) was the guy tonight."