by BOISE, Idaho – The Montana State men’s basketball team used a 14-0 run in the first half, then reacted well to Northern Colorado’s comeback attempt in order to advance to the Big Sky Tournament semifinals with an 84-73 win at the Idaho Central Arena on Sunday night.
At first, Caleb Fuller’s (18 points) sharpshooting from beyond the arc helped the 2-seed Bobcats (23-9, 15-3 Big Sky Conference) gap the 8-seed Bears (12-20, 6-12 Big Sky Conference), then RaeQuan Battle (21 points) and Jubrile Belo (18 points, eight rebounds) took over in the second half to seal the deal. The Big Sky’s Top Reserve Great Osobor showed some moxie off the bench with 15 points in just 17 minutes.
“We have enough guys with some tournament experience that they know we can’t take any opponent for granted,” Montana State Head Coach Danny Sprinkle said. “We defend, rebound and get stops that lead to our offense.”
“Overall, I’m proud of our effort and our focus,” Sprinkle added. “We’re going to have to get better on Tuesday night if we want to move forward. Defensively, we need to put two halves together.”
Montana State put together one of its best halves of basketball to start the quarterfinal by outscoring Northern Colorado 47-24, shooting 48.5% (16-for-33) from the field and 50% (6-for-12) from three — the latter of which was bolstered by Fuller tying his career high with four made threes. The mistake-adverse Bobcats committed only two first-half turnovers to UNC’s eight, as the Bears struggled against MSU’s league-leading defense bu shooting just 10-for-29 (34.5%) from the field.
Save for two free throws from Jubrile Belo to open the scoring at 18:17, both teams struggled to shoot early. Dalton Knecht tied the game at 17:52, then the Bobcats rattled off a 14-0 run with back-to-back threes from Caleb Fuller and Tyler Patterson, then RaeQuan Battle skied in for a transition dunk. Great Osobor checked in and immediately delivered by completing a three-point play, then Darius Brown II’s corner three made it a 16-2 game.
Montana State’s defense put the clamps on Northern Colorado, limiting them to shooting 34.5% from the field and 25% from three in the first half. The Bears went over four minutes without a made field goal until Knecht’s three and an emphatic, tomahawk dunk made it an 18-7 game in favor of MSU with 12:20 to play.
The Bears got their first points from someone other than Knecht when Daylen Kountz’s floater made it an 18-9 game. Yet when MSU struggled to string together good offensive possessions, Jubrile Belo bailed the Bobcats out with back-to-back points in the paint.
Montana State’s offense pushed the lead to 12 points off free throws from Sam Lecholat and Belo. However, the Bobcats kept looking for the kill shot it needed to put away the Bears for good.
Enter Caleb Fuller.
The senior nailed back-to-back threes from the right wing — the latter of which prompted a UNC timeout — then Belo found him in the corner for a third-straight three. This gave MSU a 36-17 lead — its largest of the night at that point. Going into Sunday night’s game, Fuller hadn’t made more than two threes in a single game as a Bobcat. In just 11 minutes and 14 seconds, he tied his career-high with four makes from beyond the arc.
“Caleb was tremendous tonight by making those three-pointers,” Sprinkle said. “It gave us energy defensively. When you’re making shots, that helps our defense.”
MSU didn’t ease up. Brown II found Osobor for an alley-oop, then the sophomore made a layup as time expired to double up UNC 42-21 with 2:27 remaining.
Battle opened the second-half action by scoring his 1,000th career point off a midrange floater on the left side. The junior transfer from the University of Washington is the second Bobcat to score his 1,000th career point this season, joining Darius Brown II.
But Northern Colorado wouldn’t go quietly. Daylen Kountz and Dalton Knecht proved why they were two of the conference’s leading scorers this season by combining for 36 of UNC’s 49 points in the second half. The Bears made things interesting with an 11-2 run to make it a 68-51 game with 7:36 to go, plus their full-court press sped up the Bobcats and led to several offensive lapses in the second half.
MSU, however, would snap out of it by getting to the free-throw line, as 10 of MSU’s final 16 points came from the charity stripe. Then Battle’s big dunk with 54 seconds left effectively put the exclamation mark on the 84-73 win.
Kountz led the way for Northern Colorado with 27 points on 9-for-16 shooting, while Knecht was close behind with 26 points on 11-for-20 shooting, plus eight rebounds.
With the win, Sprinkle brought his record as a player and as a coach in the Big Sky Tournament to 11-4. All coaches outside of Sprinkle have combined for an 11-11 record in the Big Sky tournament.
