Bobcats Snag First Road Win of Season, Topping Utah Valley

Tuesday, December 1

7:00 pm

Montana State University

4-3

Utah Valley

2-5

Montana State

Utah Valley

Zach Green scored 15 points for the Cats at Utah Valley

Photo by: Kelly Gorham

Bobcats Snag First Road Win of Season, Topping Utah Valley

12/1/2015 9:55:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

Youngsters pace Bobcats, while seniors find way to push MSU over the top

By: Bill Lamberty

On a night Montana State's seniors struggled to score, youngsters stepped up.

Freshman Tyler Hall poured in 25 points for the second time in the last three games and sophomore Zach Green added 15, as MSU's topped Utah Valley 76-72 in Orem on Tuesday. The win raised the Bobcats' record to 4-3 on the young season, and gave the program its first non-league road win under second-year coach Brian Fish.

While Fish lauded his young players for rising to the occasion when needed, he found plenty to like in the play of seniors Danny Robison and Marcus Colbert. "Danny didn't score like he'd want to tonight, but he grabs 11 rebounds," Fish said. "I thought it was big that Marcus gritted his teeth in the last 10 minutes," Fish said. "He fought it and found a way to be a main reason that we won by hitting late free throws, and getting five assists with only two turnovers against a switching defense is not easy to do."

Hall, who seven games into his career has two of the top five freshman scoring games by a Bobcat in the last quarter-century, posted his first career double-double. He snagged 10 rebounds. It was Green's work early, though, that kept the Cats close. He scored 13 points on 6-for-7 shooting in the first half. Junior guard Quinton Everett scored 10 of his 15 points in the first half.

The game careened back and forth throughout the night, with neither team leading by more than six points (MSU led by six with three minutes to play). The game was tied for nearly one-quarter of its 40 minutes.

While the Bobcats registered a decent road shooting effort, shooting 46% on the night and better than 44% in each half, the long-distance touch never showed up. MSU finished just 3-for-16 from the three-point line, with forward Sarp Gobeloglu nailing two of the treys. The team's free throw shooting also abandoned it, as MSU hit just 11 of its 21 charity tosses.

But the Cats compensated on the defensive end. Montana State held Utah Valley to under 40% shooting in each half, including 31% after halftime, for a 35.5% defensive effort on the night. "Three-point shooting is a key for our team," Fish said, "so to find a way to win when we don't shoot the three-pointers is big. It's another bridge we had to cross."

Fish said that defense and rebounding triggered the victory. "For two guys (Robison and Hall) to get double-digits in rebounds is huge," he said. "And Q (Quinton Everett) made some big plays."

MSU's ability to hang in defensively through the first half and then execute a defensive tactic, Fish said, played a big role in the second half. "I wanted to save switching one through four for the second half," he said. "The guys were able to do that, and that was a great job by them."

Fish credited the Wolverine for causing the Cats problems. "I didn't think we played our best game, and that's a credit to Utah Valley," Fish said. "They did some things (to trouble MSU). But I have to tip my hat to our guys as well, because they fought and fought."

Utah Valley falls to 2-5 on the season. Montana State carries its 4-3 record back to Bozeman for a 1 pm Sunday contest against the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Purchase tickets for MSU's only December home game by calling 406/994-CATS or visiting msubobcats.com.