Two of those wins came right here in the Garden City.
“We mentioned that today in practice, along with our overall mentality, how we're going to guard them and how we're going to attack them,” Montana coach Wayne Tinkle said of the Lumberjacks, who face the Griz on Thursday at 7:05 p.m. in Dahlberg Arena. “They've had our number and we've had our share of success at their place. It's just one more game, but it's a team we need to have some success against and turn things around as far as the Montana-Northern Arizona matchup.”
“We'd go with the same guards and the first one off the bench would either be Michael (Taylor) or Shawn (Stockton),” Tinkle said.
And senior Kyle Sharp will likely make his second straight start after replacing sophomore Brian Qvale at center last week.
“That's a heckuva player coming off the bench,” Tinkle said of Qvale. “Brian's had a good week of practice.”
The Griz found their stride in the second half of a 73-59 win over Montana State last week, shooting 64 percent from the floor. Johnson scored a career-high 31 points and Jordan Hasquet snapped out of a shooting slump to add 17.
“It was almost like in our first practice back they were a little too relaxed,” Tinkle said. “It's not like they weren't going hard, but it was almost like there was too much of a burden lifted. We had to snap them back and get that sense of urgency back ... and they responded. We had a good week of practice.”
The Lumberjacks, meanwhile, were earning some face time on ESPN's SportsCenter. Their 92-91 loss to Portland State in four overtimes Sunday got the Big Sky Conference more air time than anything outside of the conference championship game.
All five NAU starters average between 9.4 and 11.7 points a game.
“You can't key on any one or two guys,” Tinkle said. “What you can't do is allow any one of those guys to really go off and have a huge game. That puts more of an onus on shutting down one of their guys, and that's hard to do.”
The guard trio of seniors Josh Wilson and Matt Johnson and sophomore Cameron Jones has been particularly effective. Jones has averaged 20.0 points and 6.0 rebounds in his last three games while Wilson had a career-high 25 points, seven assists and seven rebounds in the loss to Portland State.
“(Wilson) is the head of the snake for sure, their most veteran player,” Tinkle said. “He's just a warrior out there. I don't know if we can ever really frustrate him, but we need to keep him from getting into a rhythm. He's really learning how to play well with those other guards out there. They're pretty good on the perimeter.”
Senior Zarko Comagic and sophomore Shane Johannsen are the bigs, although Comagic strays a little farther from the basket than your average power forward.
“They're very active offensively; they do a ton of different things,” Tinkle said. “It's hard for us to even give them two or three plays and say watch out for these. The thing we've focused on is our fundamentals and what we do defensively - how we guard down screens, how we guard back screens, how we guard on-balls - and that needs to get us through.”
Last week's win over the Cats evened Montana's league mark at 1-1. With league cellar-dweller Sacramento State coming to Missoula on Saturday, a win over the Jacks could potentially give the Griz some momentum to take into a three-game road swing that begins next week.
“It's key, just because ... it's so hard to win on the road,” Tinkle said. “You have to try to take care of business at home, yet not be in that panic to where they're afraid to play at home. We need to have the same approach. We have to set the tone and put the other team on its heels. If we can develop that here during this home stretch, we can take that on the road.”
NOTES: NAU coach Mike Adras is currently tied for fifth with former Griz coach Mike Montgomery on the Big Sky career wins list with 154. ... NAU's Wilson ranks fourth on the league's all-time assists list with 603. Markus Carr of Cal State Northridge (1999-2001) is third with 619. ... The Jacks lead the league in shooting when they're guarded at 48.1 percent from the field, but they're last when they're unguarded, shooting 57.3 percent from the line. ... Montana ranks first in scoring defense at 67.8 ppg. ... UM's Johnson is fourth in the league in scoring at 13.9 ppg.
Sports editor Bob Meseroll can be reached at 523-5265 or at sportsdesk@missoulian.com.
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