MISSOULA \u2014 The Montana Grizzlies picked up a much-needed victory Thursday evening as the final stretch of the Big Sky Conference regular season begins. <\/p>\n
In its second-to-last home game of the season, UM topped Sacramento State 81-73 at Dahlberg Arena. Money Williams went for 20 points while Brooklyn Hicks added 16 points after being inserted into the starting lineup. Te’Jon Sawyer added 11 points and 12 rebounds for a double-double while Tyler Thompson, Tyler Isaak and Grant Kepley all added nine apiece. <\/p>\n
WATCH THE FULL HIGHLIGHTS: <\/p>\n
Montana snaps three-game losing streak, races past Sacramento State<\/p>\n
UM started fast with a 8-0 lead and 11-2 advantage thanks to a fast start from Hicks. The Hornets would claw their way back and tie it 25-25 after Shaqir O’Neal \u2014 the son of Sac State men’s basketball general manager Shaquille O’Neal \u2014 scored on a layup with 5:37 left in the first half. <\/p>\n
However, the Griz settled in as Sawyer, Hicks and Williams paved the way and Montana led 42-32 at halftime and kept the Hornets at arm’s length the rest of the contest. UM shot at a 50.9% clip and went 11 for 29 from deep. Montana also had 18 assists in the game, and held the Hornets to 40.3% shooting and a 5 for 20 mark from 3-point range. <\/p>\n
UM had lost five of its past six but the win keeps Montana in the top half of the Big Sky Conference standings as the Griz improve to 15-14 overall and 9-7 in league play. Montana hosts Portland State on Saturday and is on the road at Northern Colorado on Monday to close out the regular season. <\/p>\n
The Hornets dropped to 9-19 overall and 5-11 in Big Sky play. With the loss, Sac State also remains winless on the road this season at 0-15 under first-year head coach and former NBA player Mike Bibby. Star guard Mikey Williams also missed the contest for the Hornets. <\/p>\n
Prophet Johnson led the way for the Hornets with 14 points. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MISSOULA \u2014 The Montana Grizzlies picked up a much-needed victory Thursday evening as the final stretch of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196050,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[91440,91441,4213,91442,12072,91443,12074,121,123,122,91444],"class_list":["post-196049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-big-sky-conference-mens-basketball","tag-brooklyn-hicks","tag-college-basketball","tag-money-williams","tag-montana-grizzlies","tag-montana-mens-basketball","tag-montana-sports","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news","tag-sacramento-state-mens-basketball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}