Southern Utah and Montana State Lose Close Games

If you just look at the box score, you see that Southern Utah lost to TCU by nine points and Montana State lost to Pepperdine by ten points. However, both games were tight deep into the second half before the Big Sky teams fell back at the stretch.

Southern Utah stayed in the game thanks to a huge day from guard Damon Heuir. He finished with 25 points on 7/14 shooting, including an impressive 9/12 from the line. The rest of the team was just a combined 11-41 from the floor. Jayson Cheesman had 9 points and 13 rebounds for the TBirds.

They lost in part because of an uncharacteristically poor game from Jackson Stevenett, who simply couldn't get the ball to go down. He was 0/10 from the floor, and finished with just one rebound and two assists in 26 minutes.

"Jackson didn't see the first couple of shots go through the net and he struggled tonight; a couple of them rimmed in and out, maybe three or four of those shots, and a lot of those were good shots, a lot were contested, but those are shots he's made before," Robinson pointed out. "I'm not worried about that, we had other guys chip in, Jayson was able to get some pretty good looks, Wade [Collie] made a couple of shots for us, and Tyson played extremely well."

Stevenett will have plenty of big games this year where he is the biggest reason that SUU wins, but that probably won't make him feel better in this one. The Thunderbirds led by a point midway through the second half before TCU went on a 24-15 run over the final ten minutes.

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Meanwhile, Montana State trailed by ten at the half before making the game very interesting late. It seems they used too much energy getting back into the game, and couldn't muster enough down the stretch. From the Bozeman Daily Chronicle:

“The difference was being down 10 at half,” Huse said. “They’re a hard team to come back on – we fought to get to where we were at and it comes down to a free-throw block out, a loose ball or something crazy. They converted, got a two possession lead and we couldn’t find the bottom of the net.

The Bobcats tied the game at 59 and trailed by two at the 2:47 mark, but they just couldn't make anything at the end of the game. They missed seven shots in the final 1:59 of the game.

Xavier Blount led the team with 19 points, while Jamie Stewart had 14 points. They struggled a bit with forcing some shots against the Pepperdine zone, which was not helped by an ankle injury to Flavien Davis, their best scorer inside. 

The losses dropped Montana State to 1-4, while Southern Utah is 1-5.

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Montana State Gets Their First Win

It was a rough opening game for Montana State, but they made up for it with an excellent showing in their home opener against Portland, winning 83-64.

Guard Antonio Biglow hit a three to open the game, and MSU never trailed. Biglow led the team with 23 points, and he was joined in double figures by Flavien Davis (13), Calen Coleman (12), and Jamie Stewart (11). The Bobcats shot 51% from the field and got to the line 39 times, making 27 of them (69%).

“I feel really good about this win,” Huse said. “A week ago we didn't feel like we played very good basketball (in a loss at Seattle), and today we feel good. We just have to keep working and keep practicing hard.”

MSU forced 19 Pilot turnovers, which is huge. They are going to be a team that will look to get out on the break a bit, so forcing turnovers will be critical to their success. They also had the rebounding edge, 32-23. Five guys had four or more rebounds.

The Bobcats now stand at 1-1, and will travel to take on Air Force on Wednesday.

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Flavien Davis Commits To Montana State

Also reported by Gidal Kaiser is the news that JUCO wing Flavien Davis will be attending Montana State next season.

Huse and Co. did get a bit of good news, as junior college transfer Flavien Davis committed to play for MSU next season. Davis is a 6-foot-5 forward (just like Reid) who averaged 15.2 points and 7.6 boards a game in 30 games for the 23-7 Ravens as a sophomore. he shot 47.3% (166-for-351) from the field and 63% (92-for-146) from the line. Davis added 45 assists and 35 steals.

Davis signed with Loyola out of high school, but did not have the grades to make it, so he went the junior college route.

He is a good scorer and rebounder, which he showed both in high school and in junior college. He is not a great three-point shooter, but is solid at getting to the line. MSU lost some depth with the subtraction of Shawn Reid, but if they are able to throw out Davis, Xavier Blount, and Jamie Stewart, they would still be OK there.

Of course, that's what we thought heading into last season. Blount and Stewart will still be question marks heading into this year.

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