The Montana men's basketball team got a taste of both Friday night, dropping an 85-55 decision to Colorado State at Moby Arena in the season opener for both teams.
The Griz downed Colorado State 75-39 in last year's season opener at Dahlberg Arena.
CSU ate the Griz up inside, where the Rams owned a 40-22 advantage in points in the paint. Andy Ogide, a 6-foot-9, 245-pound transfer from Ole Miss, led the way with 20 points and 14 rebounds.
Marcus Walker, the Mountain West Conference's leading scorer last season, added 17 points and true freshman Jesse Carr came off the bench for 14 more.
“Ogide is really going to help them,” Montana coach Wayne Tinkle said in a postgame interview on KXGZ radio. “He's just a bull. We didn't do a good job on him. We played soft and we let a true freshman come in and get 14.
“It's all between the ears, and maybe one or two other places.”
The Rams also turned 14 Montana turnovers into 18 points.
“Our new guys had some careless turnovers in the first half and that didn't help,” Tinkle said. “Just bonehead mistakes.”
Sophomore center Brian Qvale led the Griz with 15 points and junior guard Ryan Staudacher added 14. Senior Jordan Hasquet was held to just seven points on 3-for-11 shooting and sophomore Michael Taylor also had seven.
It was a tough debut for transfer Jack McGillis, who scored just five points - all once the game was out of reach in the second half - while being hampered by foul trouble. Fellow newcomers Anthony Johnson (3 points, 1-for-6 shooting) and Vassy Banny (0 points) also struggled in their Griz debuts.
Both teams stuttered in the early going before Andre McFarland and Walker hit back-to-back 3-pointers to give the Rams a 14-6 lead. Walker followed that up with another jumper to give the Rams a double-digit lead that they enjoyed the rest of the game.
The Griz, meanwhile, missed 12 of their first 16 shots.
“They weren't guarding us great, we were missing open shots and shots around the basket,” Tinkle said. “We did a great job of getting the ball to our post players and didn't convert.
“The sad thing was when we weren't converting, we stopped defending.”
The Rams led 39-20 at intermission and steadily added to that margin until it reached 84-47 on a pair of free throws by Carr with 4:15 to play.
“They got to the hole at will in transition and the pick-and-roll hurt us early,” Tinkle said. “Our guys were in a fog and I don't understand it.”
“We've got to have some of our veterans stand up, grab guys and pull them together,” Tinkle added. “We were really in a fog and looked like a team with a bunch of new parts stepping on the court for the first time. Shame on them. We have no excuse for coming out and not having focus.”
The Griz also struggled mightily from the free throw line, where they cashed in on just 5-of-14 attempts. The Rams were 24-for-32.
“Eleven assists is all we had, that's not good enough,” Tinkle said. “They shot 32 free throws to our 14, that tells you right there who was the aggressor.
“We didn't get out of the gate. We've got to establish we're going to be a tough team. I thought we did. We took a step back tonight.”
MONTANA (55)
Mins FG-A FT-A Reb PF A Pts
f-Hasquet 26 3-11 0-4 4 1 0 7
f-McGillis 24 2-7 1-3 1 4 4 5
c-Qvale 26 6-11 3-5 10 3 0 15
g-Staudacher 29 6-10 0-0 3 2 0 14
g-Elgin-Taylor 30 0-4 0-0 3 1 5 0
Taylor 14 3-6 0-0 0 1 0 7
Stockton 5 1-1 0-0 0 2 0 2
Johnson 13 1-6 1-2 1 0 1 3
Selvig 14 1-1 0-0 2 4 0 2
Banny 7 0-2 0-0 1 1 0 0
Sharp 12 0-2 0-0 2 3 1 0
Totals 200 23-61 5-14 33 22 11 55
COLORADO STATE (85)
Mins FG-A FT-A Reb PF A Pts
f-McFarland 24 3-5 0-0 2 2 0 9
f-Ogide 29 6-8 8-10 14 1 2 20
g-Walker 23 6-12 4-4 2 1 3 17
g-Perry 19 3-9 1-2 4 1 2 7
g-Gardner 29 5-8 0-0 3 1 0 10
Franklin 4 0-0 0-0 1 0 0 0
Clayman 3 0-0 0-0 0 1 0 0
Carr 20 2-3 9-10 6 2 2 14
Nigon 15 0-2 0-0 1 0 0 0
Annese 3 0-1 0-2 0 0 0 0
Simmons 5 0-1 0-0 1 0 0 0
Bocar Ba 18 0-2 2-4 3 1 1 2
Vandervieren 8 3-3 0-0 2 5 0 6
Totals 200 28-54 24-32 40 15 10 85
Halftime score: CSU 39, UM 20.
3-point goals: UM 4-15 (Staudacher 2-4, Taylor 1-2, Hasquet 1-3, Elgin-Taylor 0-1, McGillis 0-2, Johnson 0-1, Banny 0-2), CSU 5-17 (McFarland 3-5, Carr 1-2, Walker 1-5, Nigon 0-1, Gardner 0-2, Perry 0-2).
Turnovers: UM 14, (Johnson 3), CSU 8 (Carr 2).
Blocked shots: UM 2 (McGillis, Qvale), CSU 3 (Ogide 2).
Steals: UM 1 (McGillis), CSU 7 (Walker 2, Perry 2).
Officials: Bill Gracey, Rosevelt Brown, Doran Gotschal.
Attendance: 2,964
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