by (Las Vegas, NV) – Montana basketball and junior guard Money Williams went into the Thomas & Mack Center on Tuesday night and left with a 102-93 upset win over the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels. The Grizzlies went on the road, led for over 32 minutes of the game, and closed out the first road win in the month of November since 2017 with the big win.
It was a signature performance for the preseason Big Sky MVP Williams. He caught fire in the second half against Stanford and carried it into Tuesday night, scoring 30 points and recording 8 assists to lead Montana to the victory.
It’s the 3rd time that Williams has scored 30 in a game in his career and he was also one assist away from his career high. He’s the first player in program history to record at least eight assists in a 30-point performance.
“We kept him in some spots that allow him to be aggressive and I thought the guys did a good job playing off of him,” DeCuire said. “These are the type of games that he likes to show up for and he was prepared. I don’t think he liked our performance at Stanford, I challenged him big time on Sunday, and he’s known to respond when you challenge him.”
It was first win over UNLV since 1964 and just the second all-time as Montana improved to 3-1 on the season. It snaps a 21-match losing streak in road games played in November. They reached the century mark against a D-1 opponent for the first time since 2019 when they did it against Idaho.
“You have to look at our schedule. I bet we probably have the strongest schedule in November if you go off those 11 years because they are all guarantee games. None of them are like opponents, we don’t play anyone in the Summit, Big Sky, Big West, anything in November on the road. They are all high majors, but we were able to pick one off tonight.”
Williams was stellar, but it was a complete team victory for the Grizzlies. The five starters all reached double figures as the Grizzlies shot 55.4 percent from the floor as a team, outrebounded UNLV 38-31, and scored 54 points in the paint.
Te’Jon Sawyer just missed out on his first double-double as a Grizzly with 18 points and 9 rebounds. Freshman Kenyon Aguino had 15 points, redshirt freshman Tyler Thompson had 11 points while shooting 3-of-5 from the arc, and Tyler Isaak had 10 points and four rebounds.
The Grizzlies shot 38 percent from three-point range and were 24-of-27 (.889) from the free throw line in the sterling offensive performance. Montana’s two starting posts, Aguino and Sawyer, combined for 33 points on 65 percent shooting. DeCuire petitioned his team to try to find more paint touches, and they did not disappoint him.
“I think the fact that the ball got to the places where we knew we could find some advantages,” DeCuire said. “I didn’t think we got enough paint touches against Stanford and that was a point of emphasis in film when we got here. We just weren’t going to score the ball the way we were playing, so I really liked our balance tonight.”
Montana went on a 11-0 run in the early stages of the game in just under two minutes, pulling ahead 15-7 after holding UNLV scoreless for over three minutes. Tyler Thompson had two baskets off endline out of bounds plays during the run and the duo of Williams and Sawyer added six points.
DeCuire always believes in his team’s ability to get a win, but after that run he knew that they had the chance to do something special on Tuesday night.
“The run in the first half after Chase Henderson checked in and we picked the trap apart,” DeCuire said of the moment when he gained his belief that the team could win. “They’re in a 1-2-2, we’re pushing it, Money was doing his thing, and to know that my guard play was going to be aggressive against the pressure and the zone, I just thought Chase was phenomenal today.”
The Runnin’ Rebels brought things back with an 8-0 run of their own in a fast and frenetic start to the game. It sent things into the under-12 media timeout tied up at 19-all with both teams shooting at least 54 percent from the field.
The trio of Sawyer, Thompson, and Williams had the first 19 points of the game for the Grizzlies, and all three were off the floor at the end of the long UNLV run. DeCuire didn’t let that last long.
His starters re-entered the game after a timeout and it was a battle for the rest of the half as both offenses remained hot. Montana leaned on the combo of Williams and Sawyer the rest of the way in the half, and they delivered for Coach DeCuire.
Williams had 18 first half points to bring his total over the previous 40 minutes of basketball up to 37 points. He also had three assists at the break. Sawyer score 11 first-half points to go with three rebounds.
The effort from the two led to a 47-45 halftime lead for Montana. The Grizzlies shot 52.8 percent from the floor in the first half. Turnovers were the main issue in Saturday’s loss at Stanford, but the Griz committed just four turnovers that led to four points in the first half against the Runnin’ Rebels.
DeCuire’s team came out of the halftime break fired up to go, scoring on its first possession with a lay-up from the freshman Aguino. The three-time New Mexico Gatorade Player of the Year scored the first six points of the half for either team to extend Montana’s lead to 53-45.
The Grizzlies kept the run going with a layup from Te’Jon Sawyer. The pressure that the Williams and Aguino pick-and-roll had put on UNLV boiled over and led to an easy back cut for Tyler Isaak for a layup to give Montana the first 10 points of the half.
It led to a 57-45 Grizzly lead and forced UNLV head coach Josh Pastner to take a timeout.
The break proved effective for the Runnin’ Rebels as they would go on a quick 7-0 run over the next 40 seconds to cut the Grizzly lead back down to five.
The Grizzlies countered with another run of their own. Williams scored in the paint to reach to 20-point mark for the 9th time in his career and the Griz followed it up with beautiful ball movement that resulted in another three from Thompson.
Williams scored again to make it 64-52 with just over 13 minutes to go. The Runnin’ Rebels would get within seven, but another 7-0 Grizzly run extended the Grizzly lead to the largest of the night at 15.
Amari Jedkins, who didn’t play a minute in the first half, knocked down a corner three and Thompson knocked down his third shot from the arc. Combined with a free throw from Brooklyn Hicks, it gave Montana a 74-59 lead with 10:50 to go.
It was the story all night as the five starters played well and every Grizzly that came on in relief made winning plays. Henderson had five points and two assist, but DeCuire said it was one of his best games at Montana as his pace up and down the floor got the UNLV defense out of rhythm.
Brooklyn Hicks, who spent the last two years at UNLV, had eight points and five rebounds in his 18 minutes in a huge performance against his former team. Everybody that touched the floor impacted the Grizzly win.
“It’s good to have 7 or 8 guys ready to go. Even the guys that subbed in for short spurts were ready to go,” DeCuire said. “Amari Jedkins’ 10 minutes were huge with foul trouble and things like that, he goes in and makes a three and has three big rebounds for us. I thought, man-to-man, everybody was prepared for their moment and took advantage.”
After six straight UNLV points, Chase Henderson got the rim for a three-point play that extended the lead back out to 77-65.
The Grizzlies would lead by double figures all the way up until a desperation three at the buzzer made it 102-93.
It’s the 6th win over a Mountain West team for DeCuire, and the third in the last four games against the conference.
The Runnin’ Rebels were coming off a 32-point win over a Chattanooga team that is just outside of the top 100 in the country, according to KenPom. The momentum was on their side, but Montana took it all away early.
They pressed full court and alternated between man and zone defense. It didn’t matter. The Grizzlies found success against all of them in the best offensive performance in six years.
“I think attention to detail was a weakness and a major concern of mine coming out of the Stanford game,” DeCuire said. “Tonight it was a huge challenge because these guys change defenses so much. You have man, zone, full court pressure, three different actions that you have to prepare for in every possession. I didn’t know that we were prepared for that mentally yet, but the guys were flowing pretty well after our film session so I had a lot of confidence going in.”
