Montana Grizzlies beat Northern Arizona in Big Sky home opener, improve to 3-0

MISSOULA The Montana men's basketball team won its Big Sky Conference home opener on Thursday night to stay undefeated in league action.

The Grizzlies built double-digit leads each half and held off Northern Arizona, 81-76, in their first game at Robin Selvig Court since Dec.

10 They've now won 12 consecutive games inside Dahlberg Arena going back to last year.

Montana improved to 10-6 overall and 3-0 in conference play.

Northern Arizona dropped to 10-6, 1-2.

Malik Moore paced UM with 20 points and five assists.

Brandon Whitney added 16 points, Kai Johnson chipped in 12 points, Joe Pridgen had nine and Te'Jon Sawyer had eight.

Money Williams, the reigning Big Sky co-player of the week, had six points and three assists.

Whitney's defense helped Montana hold guard Trent McLaughlin, the Big Sky preseason MVP and No.

2 scorer in the nation, to 19 points on 6-of-21 shooting.

He carded three assists to move into fifth place in UM history with 398 career helpers.

Montana also limited forward Carson Towt, one of the country's top double-double machines, to nine points and 10 rebounds.

Jayden Jackson led the Lumberjacks with 22 points on 9-of-19 shooting and Monty Bowser added 11.

Montana shot 51.7% from the field and 45% on 3-pointers.

It held NAU to 42% from the floor, including 29.3% in the second half, and 38.9% from deep, including 16.7% after halftime.

The Griz raced out to a 17-point lead, 36-19, as Moore had a personal 8-0 run while scoring a team-high 16 first-half points.

They had their lead trimmed to 46-41 at the intermission as the Jacks made their run with solid 3-point shooting, hitting 5 of 6 that half while Montana made 7 of 11 from deep.

UM's lead was cut to 51-50 in the second half and it answered with a 10-2 run, started off with a personal 5-0 run from Austin Patterson.

Johnson had six straight points for the Griz and Moore had a bucket and assist on back-to-back possessions as UM took its first double-digit lead of the half at 69-59.

After Bowser converted an and-1 to trim UM's lead to 69-67, Whitney followed with a layup, Sawyer added a hook and Whitney added on a layup to push it to 75-67.

Montana made all six of its free throws down the stretch to hold off NAU, which got within 79-76 after a 3-pointer, steal and layup.

The Griz will continue what could potentially be their toughest Big Sky homestand by hosting Northern Colorado at 4 p.m.

on Saturday.

The Bears erased a 20-point deficit to win at Montana State, 83-82, on Thursday night to move to 3-0 in conference play and 11-5 overall.

UNC's Langston Reynolds shared Big Sky player of the week honors with Williams last week as the Bears beat Weber State and Idaho State to kick off league play.

Frank Gogola is the Senior Sports Reporter at the Missoulian and 406 MT Sports.

Follow him on X @FrankGogola or email him at [email protected] .

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