Montana hammers Eastern in title game

The Montana Grizzlies flipped the switch on a lights-out first-half shooting exhibition by Eastern Washington in last Saturday’s Big Sky Conference men’s basketball championship game sending them onto the NCAA tournament after an 82-65 victory at the Reno Events Center.

The Eagles led 40-29 at halftime thanks to shooting 53.3 percent that included 8-of-13 from the 3-point line – a sizzling 61-5 percent.

But Eastern hit just 38 percent in the second half – including 1-of-10 from the arc – and was outscored 53-25. Montana made 58 percent its shots in the game and 63 percent in the second half, using a 28-4 run in a 10-minute span to not only overcome a seven-point EWU lead, but take a 17-point lead.

“I’m disappointed and I’ll probably look at this game a 1,000 times,” head coach Shantay Legans said. “I’m sure there are things we could have done a lot better tonight.”

After that torrid start, Eastern finished the game at 45.8 percent overall and 39.1 percent from 3-point range going 9-of-23.

Eastern’s Bogdan Bliznyuk was held to 15 points on 7-of-14 shooting from the field. He earned All-Tournament honors for the Eagles by scoring 82 points in three tournament games.

“They did a great job of defending Bogdan, but they also did a great job of helping,” Legans said. “It came down to making shots and we didn’t, so we came up a little short. We shot the ball well in the first half, but when you go 1-of-11 from 3 in the second half with open looks, that what happens.”

Redshirt freshman Jacob Davison scored 11 first-half points and finished with a team-high 16. Sophomore Mason Peatling had 15 points.

Michael Oguine led the Griz with 21 points, one of four Montana players in double figures.

Eastern got to the title game with an 82-70 win over the surprise team of the tournament, No. 10-seeded Southern Utah. The Eagles opened play holding on to edge Portland State 78-72.

As a consolation prize, Eastern, 20-14 on the season, did earn the program’s fourth consecutive postseason berth with a March 13 game at Utah Valley State University in the College Basketball Invitational.

Utah Valley is 22-10 and was a semifinalist in the Western Athletic Conference tournament.

In a semifinal win over Southern Utah, Bliznyuk broke the 24-year old league all-time career scoring record of 2,102 points set by Orlando Lightfoot from Idaho in three seasons from 1991-94.

Bliznyuk saw his NCAA consecutive free throw record halted at 77 March 8 against Portland State.

The Grizzlies are 26-7 overall and won the Big Sky regular season title with a 16-2 record. They earned a No. 14 seed and met No. 3 seed Michigan today (March 15). The Eagles won the lone regular season meeting between the two, 74-65 in Cheney on Feb. 15.