Bobcats look to make history in Dayton

DAYTON, Ohio — Making their third straight appearance and sixth overall at the NCAA Tournament, the Montana State men's basketball team will take the court Wednesday night at UD Arena looking to make history.

The Bobcats (17-17) will square off with fellow 16th seed Grambling State (20-14) for the right to advance to the Round of 64 and play top seed Purdue Friday night in Indianapolis.

“It's obviously a joy to be here,” first-year MSU coach Matt Logie said during a press conference on Tuesday. “This is a group that has had a special, special journey to get here. We took over last spring around the end of April and had a ton of work to do. Building a staff, completing a roster — this team has made me so proud in the way that they've stuck to the process and continued to keep their eyes focused on March as the goal for playing our best basketball.”

Tip on Wednesday is set for 4:40 p.m. The game will be nationally televised on TruTV, with 

Spero Dedes, Jim Spanarkel, and Jon Rothstein on the call. 

Montana State is looking for their first NCAA Tournament win in program history. 

“It's an exciting opportunity,” Logie said. “Obviously comes with a lot of exposure for our basketball family and for our young men, which is well-deserved. It's also an opportunity to keep the momentum going that we've built here in the last couple of weeks.” 

Montana State punched their ticket to the Big Dance by making a run through the Big Sky Tournament in Boise last past week as the No. 5 seed, the lowest to win it since 1994. 

The Cats took down archrival and No. 3-seed Montana in the championship game, 85-70.

“The whole season, you're building towards the end of the year,” junior guard Brian Goracke said. “We just want to make sure we're at our best when it counts. And especially in a conference that has a single bid like the Big Sky, we just want to give ourselves the best chance to make this run at the end and win those three games in March and make it here.”

Robert Ford III was named Big Sky Tournament MVP after averaging 22.7 points, 7.0 rebounds, 3.6 assists, and 3.3 steals in three games, shooting 59 percent from the field and 47.1 percent from beyond the arc. 

Ford also became the third straight Bobcat to earn Big Sky Defensive Player of the Year honors, and was selected First Team All-Big Sky as well. He is currently second in the country in steals (100) and owns the Montana State single-season record. Among players listed at 6-foot-3 or shorter, the 6-foot Ford is second in NCAA Division I in rebounding (7.6).  

Ford is one of five players since 1979 in NCAA Division I with 250+ rebounds and 100+ steals in a season, joining Clyde Drexler (1982-83), Ron Harper (1985-86), James Posey (1998-1999), and Eric Coley (1999-2000). Ford is the only member of that list under 6-foot-5. 

Goracke was named to the Big Sky All-Tournament Team., averaging 12.3 points, 2.3 rebounds, and 1.1 blocks.

Sophomore Brandon Walker is honorable mention all-Big Sky after ranking 10th in scoring (13.7 ppg) and third in field goal percentage (.556). Walker scored a career-high 26 points in a Power Five win over California in Berkeley on Nov. 16. 

John Olmsted has been one of the best stories of the season. A four-year walk-on at Arizona State who transferred to Montana State to use his last year of eligibility this season, Olmsted played just 27 minutes the entire month of February before exploding for a career-high 15 points against first-place Eastern Washington on March 1. The 6-foot-11 center has now scored at least 15 points in three of the last five games, including a career-high 16 points and 5 rebounds against Montana. The Bobcats are 4-1 in those five games. 

In his first year at the helm of the Bobcats, Matt Logie is leading a Montana State that was picked seventh in the preseason Big Sky Coaches' Poll to their third straight NCAA Tournament. In 13 years as a head coach, Logie has advanced to the NCAA Tournament 12 times, and is believed to be just the second-ever coach to lead a team to the NCAA Tournament at the Division III, Division II, and Division I levels. 

The other coach to do so was Tobin Anderson, who led Fairleigh Dickinson to a win at the First Four last year in Dayton before becoming the second-ever No. 16 seed to knock off a No. 1 seed, defeating Purdue, 63-58. 

Grambling State, the Bobcats' opponent on Wednesday, comes into the NCAA Tournament as the champions of the SWAC (going 14-4 in league) making their first-ever Big Dance appearance. 

“They're a team that is also playing really, really good basketball,” Logie said. “Won nine of their last t10 games. They have a veteran backcourt that is very dynamic in (Kintavious) Dozier and (Tra'Michael) Moton. So they know who they are, and they're a team that's been executing their system all the way back to November and December at a very high level.”

The game can be heard SiriusXM Satellite Radio on Sirius ch. 211 and XM ch. 204. A free online stream of all individual Westwood One game broadcasts, as well as the "March Madness Mix", is available at WestwoodOneSports.com/madness

Fans can also listen via the free NCAA March Madness Live app (locate audio by individual game), via the free Varsity Network app (locate audio by following Westwood One), or via TuneIn Premium (Westwood One Sports Channel C). 

Nate Gatter and Jim Boeheim will call the action nationally for Westwood One, and Voice of the Bobcats Keaton Gillogly's call of Wednesday night's game will air on the Bobcat Sports Network.