Montana State University
Idaho State
Championship DNA: Bobcats Head to Boise as Three-Time Defending Champs
3/7/2025 2:50:00 PM | Men's Basketball
No. 5 seed Montana State faces No. 4 seed Idaho State in the third round of "Starch Madness" on Monday night
BOZEMAN, Mont. -- The three-time defending Big Sky Tournament champion Montana State men's basketball team looks for an unprecedented fourth straight title when they head to Boise this weekend for the 2025 Big Sky Basketball Championships.
Fifth-seeded Montana State begins their tournament run with a third round matchup against fourth-seeded Idaho State on Monday night at 5:30 p.m. from Idaho Central Arena.
All games at the tournament through the third round air regionally on Scripps Sports stations and state-wide on the MTN channel, with live streaming on ESPN+.
Tony Parks will handle play-by-play duties, with Joe Cravens in the analyst chair.
Voice of the Bobcats Keaton Gillogly will call the action on the Bobcat Sports Network.
The winner of Monday night's game advances to the semifinal on Tuesday night at 7 p.m. on ESPNU, facing either No. 1 Northern Colorado, No. 9 Weber State, or No. 10 Sacramento State.
Weber State and Sacramento State face off on Saturday at 5:30 p.m., with the winner taking on Northern Colorado on Sunday at 5:30 p.m.
The Big Sky Championship game takes place Wednesday night at 9:30 p.m. on ESPN2.
Montana State has won nine straight games in Boise at the conference tournament and 11 of their last 12, appearing in four straight Big Sky Championship games and winning each of the last three in 2022, 2023, and 2024.
Just like last season, when the Cats became the lowest seeded team to win the tournament since 1994, Montana State enters the postseason with a 14-17 overall record and a 9-9 mark in conference play.
And just like last season, a late lineup switch has paid dividends, allowing the Cats to ride momentum into March and play their best basketball of the year at the perfect time.
The Big Sky Conference has never had a four-peat champion, something that head coach Matt Logie has alluded to since the summer as a mission for this version of the Bobcats.
Montana State has gone dancing at the NCAA Tournament six times in program history: 1951, 1986, 1996, 2022, 2023, and 2024.
BACK IN BOISE: Montana State enters Monday on a nine-game winning streak in Boise, a place where they are 11-1 with four consecutive trips to the Big Sky Championship game since the 2020-2021 season. Since the tournament moved to Boise in the 2018-19 season, Montana State is 12-2 overall.
CAN HISTORY REPEAT ITSELF?: Last season, Montana State entered Boise with a 14-17 overall record and a 9-9 conference mark as the No. 5 seed before embarking on one of the more remarkable runs in Big Sky history, storming through the tournament on the way to their third consecutive Big Sky Tournament title and NCAA Tournament appearance, becoming the lowest-seeded team to cut down the nets since 1994. Just as last year, a late lineup change has sparked the Cats' best stretch of play of the season--with 39 assists combined in the last two games and an average margin of victory of 20.5 points.
BIG SKY RECORD-HOLDER: Tyler Patterson will play in his 159th game on Monday night, adding on to his Big Sky Conference record. Patterson has started in a program-record 147 games and is tied with Montana guard Brandon Whitney for the most starts at the same school among active players in NCAA Division I. Patterson has been a starter on three straight Big Sky Championship teams that have gone to three consecutive NCAA Tournaments. The "Snoqualmie Sniper" has now connected on 272 career 3-pointers--the second-most in program history after passing both Danny Sprinkle (263) and Harald Frey (270) last week.
BENCH WORK: In nine of the last 11 games, Montana State's leading scorer has come off the bench--with Patrick McMahon leading the Bobcats four times over that span and Jabe Mullins leading in scoring on five occasions. Montana State ranks 20th in the country in bench minutes (40.1%) and 49th in bench points (26.1). In conference play, McMahon and Mullins have been the Bobcats second and third-leading scorers, respectively, starting the first five games of conference play before being moved to the bench ahead of a road contest at Weber State on Jan. 18. Recently, Mullins has started each of the last two games in place of Brandon Walker
SERIES HISTORY: Montana State and Idaho State meet for the 213th time on Monday in the 63rd most-played series in all of Division I college basketball. Idaho State is MSU's second-most common opponent historically behind the University of Montana (309 meetings). Montana State leads the series with Idaho State, 124-88. Montana State has won 12 of the last 13 over Idaho State. Prior to taking down MSU on January 16 in Pocatello earlier this year, the Bengals last beat the Bobcats on March 1, 2018, a span of 2,147 days. MSU and ISU have met once in Boise, a 71-63 win in 2021 for the No. 5 seed Cats over the No. 4 seed Bengals in the third round. The win, spearheaded by then-point guard and current MSU assistant Xavier Bishop, pushed Montana State to the semifinal round for the first time in 12 years. This season, Montana State has split with Idaho State in their two meetings, falling 70-67 in Pocatello on Jan. 16 before getting revenge in Bozeman on Feb. 15 with a 74-69 victory.
MORE FROM MULLINS: Jabe Mullins continued a torrid close to his collegiate career with a 20-point outing in last Saturday's win over Sacramento State. The graduate student has scored at least 16 points in seven of his last eight games, with all scoring explosions coming off the bench prior to being re-inserted into the starting lineup on Saturday in Sacramento and again last Monday against Idaho. Mullins, a childhood friend and high school teammate of Tyler Patterson, has played in two NCAA Tournaments and two NITs as part of stints at both Saint Mary's and Washington State.
BOISE BRIAN: Brian Goracke was named to the Big Sky All-Tournament team last year after averaging 12.3 points per game in Boise on 50.0% shooting from the floor and 46.7% from three. Goracke dropped a heroic 25 points on 8-of-12 shooting in a win over No. 4 seed Weber State in the third round.
TURNOVER BATTLE: Montana State has been the best team in the Big Sky at avoiding turnovers, averaging just 9.9 per game this season. Tyler Patterson leads the country in turnover rate, with only 4.7% of turnovers with him on the court resulting from him. In 711 minutes of game action, Patterson has turned it over just seven times this season.
AT THE FREE THROW LINE: Jabe Mullins is ninth in the country in free throw percentage, going 72 of 78 at the line (92.3%). Tyler Hall owns the program record at 90.7% (2017-18). On the opposite end, teams are shooting 77.3% at the free throw line against Montana State--the fifth-highest mark in the country.
IRON MAN: Tyler Patterson missed a game against Eastern Washington on January 20 with an injury, his first career missed game in five years. It broke a streak of 147 games straight that Patterson had played in since arriving on campus ahead of the 2020-21 season. Patterson has started 147 games for MSU, a school record, and his 158 games played also represents a school record. The graduate student's 147 starts are the most at ONE school for any active player in NCAA Division l. Patterson is second in program history in made 3-pointers (273), after passing both Harald Frey (272) and Danny Sprinkle (263) last week.
SAM IS MADE FOR MARCH: Sam Lecholat has played at least 23 minutes in seven of his last eight games and has started 13 games in a row after exclusively coming off the bench until a road game at Weber State on Jan. 18th. Lecholat is coming off a season-high 10 points in a 75-60 win over Idaho in the regular season finale, and is averaging 4.5 rebounds over his last nine outings. Last season, it was the emergence of Lecholat as a critical frontcourt piece that helped spark Montana State's tournament run. The native of Sheridan, Wyoming, scored 13 points with 11 rebounds in the semifinal win over Sacramento State, then played 35 minutes in the championship game win over Montana the next day.
TYLER TRIPLES: In the first meeting between Montana State and Idaho State, Tyler Patterson knocked down six triples and finished with 18 points in a 70-67 loss. The six threes were tied for a career-high for Patterson until he hit eight from beyond the arc in a lopsided win over Sacramento State last Saturday, finishing with a career-high 26 points.
MONDAY'S KEYS: Head coach Matt Logie has acknowledged that two keys to victory on Monday night will be limiting Dylan Darling's efficiency and holding their own on the glass against one of the best rebounding teams in the country. In the Cats' 74-69 win over Idaho State in Bozeman on Feb. 15, Montana State turned it over just three times in the second half and held the Bengals to just three offensive rebounds in the second half. Dylan Darling willed Idaho State back into the game and finished with a game-high 27 points, but had to take 23 shots to get there.
CLOSE MARGINS: Eight of Montana State's nine losses in conference play have come by seven points or fewer with the lone exception a 69-52 defeat at Portland State on Feb. 27 at Viking Pavilion. Out of 31 conferences, the Big Sky has had the fifth-fewest number of blowouts. Only 8 of 90 conference games have been decided by 20 or more points.
DEFEND THE ARC: Opponents are shooting just 30.1% from beyond the arc against the Bobcats this season, the 16th-lowest mark in NCAA Division
GOLDEN AGE OF BOBCAT BASKETBALL: Montana State has played in four straight Big Sky Tournament championship games, gone 58-25 against Big Sky opponents over the last four seasons, and made three straight NCAA Tournament appearances for the first time in school history. The Bobcats are the Big Sky Conference's first three-peat champion since Idaho from 1981-83. In 2021-22, Montana State went 27-8, which included a 13-1 record at home and a program-record 16 wins in conference play. In 2022-2023, Montana State went 25-10, collected a 12-1 record at Worthington Arena, and went 15-3 in conference action.
THE MATT LOGIE FILE: Second-year MSU head coach Matt Logie has taken his teams to the NCAA Tournament in 12 of his 13 seasons as a head coach, and is believed to be just the second men's coach in history to lead teams to the Big Dance at the Division I, Division II, and Division III levels (Tobin Anderson). Logie ranks 22nd in NCAA men's basketball history in career winning percentage (.770) and is tenth among active head coaches. Logie came to Montana State after four seasons at Point Loma (Division II), where his teams rolled up an 82-23 record with three conference championships, and eight seasons at Whitworth (Division III), where his teams went 194-35.
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