NDSU holds off Griz at Montgomery Classic
MISSOULA — Damari Wheeler-Thomas scored 22 points, Tajavis Miller hit four 3-pointers and North Dakota State held off Montana 78-69 in the final game of the Mike Montgomery Classic Thursday.
The Classic brough three teams, including UC Davis, and Montgomery to Dahlberg Arena for a round-robin tournament. Each team went 1-1, while Montgomery — a Hall of Fame head coach whose first stop was guiding the Griz — received a framed Montana uniform with his 677 career wins sewn on the back.
Down 17 with six minutes to play Thursday, the Grizzlies made their battle with NDSU a one-possession game in the final minute.
The Griz outrebounded the Bison 37-35 and built advantages in the paint (30-22), off the bench (25-9) and on second-chance points (11-3).
The Bison shot 9-of-23 from three-point range, 5-of-12 in the second half. The loss drops Montana to 2-2 overall this season.
“Our discipline has got to get better and our grit has got to get better. It takes losses to watch on film and learn from those,” Griz coach Travis DeCuire said. “The Oregon game is easy to watch on film, that’s Oregon. Now to see a like opponent out-physical us, outhustle us, get loose balls, offensive rebounds, things like that….”
Montana were led for the third time this season by Aanen Moody, who scored 18 points and grabbed five rebounds. He scored six points with one made field goal in the second half.
The Grizzlies went ahead 8-2 in the opening three minutes of the game with Moody knocking down a couple of tough shots. A major battle early was fought down low between Laolu Oke and NDSU’s 6-10 Andrew Morgan, and Oke finished with 11 points and 11 rebounds, his first double-double at Montana.
Money Williams added 15 points off the bench, including two free throws that cut the gap to 72-69 with 24 seconds left. The Bison hit six straight free throws from there.
Williams is averaging 12.5 points in 18.5 minutes through four games of his young career.
“He got us going late,” DeCuire said. “We were scoring off our defense and I thought he did a good job of taking advantage of the penetration opportunities and looking to score as opposed to coming to stops and passing it out. He did a good job, he’s going to score a lot of points in his career here, and hopefully a ton of them as a freshman.”