By DAVE GUFFEY for GoGriz.com
THE GAME: The University of Montana Grizzlies (5-7/2-0) play their first their Big Sky Conference road games of the young season, Thursday, Jan. 8, playing the preseason and defending league champion Weber State Wildcats (5-8/-0-2) in WSU’s Dee Events Center, with tip-off at 7:05 p.m.
UP NEXT? The Grizzlies continue their conference two-game road trip, playing the Idaho State Bengals on Saturday, Jan. 10.
RADIO: Veteran Mick Holien calls the action on Montana’s flagship stations KGVO 1290 AM/ & 101.5 FM, and the Grizzly Radio Network from Learfield Sports. (Griz BB Network on Page 7 of weekly release).
STREAMING: The Griz-WSU game is available via streaming with a subscription on gogriz.com and WatchBigSky.com.
GRIZ LAST TWO GAMES:
At Montana 74, North Dakota 63: Martin Breunig scored a game-high 23 points and Jordan Gregory added 19 points to lead UM.
The Griz out-rebounded UND 33-20, and UND’s 20 rebounds are the fewest by an opponent this season. At
At Montana 66, N. Colorado 48: Gregory, Breunig, and Brandon Gfeller combined for 57 points to lead the way. Gregory led the Griz with a game-high 24 points. Breunig scored 18 points and pulled down a team-high 9 rebounds, while Gfeller tied his career-high with 15 points.
GRIZ IN NCAA RANKINGS: Breunig is ranked ninth in the nation in field goal percentage at 62.5%. Gregory is ranked 54th in 3-pointers made per game (2.75). UM is ranked 27th in fewest turnovers (34) and 31st in 3-pointers per game (8.3).
QUOTING HEAD COACH DECUIRE:
ON WEBER STATE GAME: “Most of their guys can score. I think they are a lot like everyone else, in when they have a balanced attack is when they’re at their best. But, you typically would need a go-to guy, and I think they’re still figuring that out right now.“He (sophomore guard Jeremy Senglin, WSU’s leading scorer at 15.0 ppg) has a good game. He attacks the rim well. He’s got a good handle. He’s tough to cover because of his shooting range you need to go out and cover him, and he wants to penetrate. So it’s hard to contain him. I think that is what creates a lot of open opportunities for other guys. If we can get out there and contain him early, then I think we can slow them up a little bit.”
ON OPENING THE BIG SKY SEASON WITH TWO HOME WINS: “We talked about that a little bit with the team. There’s only three teams in the conference right now with road wins, and we’d like to be the fourth. Getting two (road wins this week) would be great. A split is good, and two is great.”
IT SEEMS LIKE A LOT OF YOUR PLAYERS ARE STARTING TO FIGURE OUT THEIR ROLES ON THE TEAM: “That’s a big thing for us, and we’ve talked about helping each other out on both sides of the ball.
Offensively, it’s whether it’s setting a screen, or creating a shooting opportunity for someone off of penetration; or a post touch or something like that. We are starting to figure that out. I think the guys are turning down shots for other guys to get better shots.”
IT SEEMS LIKE YOUR TEAM HAS IMPROVED DEFENSIVELY OVER THE PAST FEW WEEKS: “It was kind of a sore spot for us early. We just had a long way to go from where we started. The guys are starting to get in a better rhythm now. We spent a lot of time on it and we still continue to do that. So for us, I think we are improving, but we’ve still got some areas that we are a little weak in that people are exploiting, that we’ve got to take care of. But at this point I’m happy with the production that we are getting.”