INDIANS' FIRST LOSS IS A GRIZZLY ONE

MISSOULA, Mont. -- As the saying goes, all good things must eventually come to an end.

For Southeast Missouri State University's men's basketball team, that meant the end of the Indians' perfect record.

Montana handed Southeast its first loss of the season, rallying past the Indians 60-48 Friday night in the opening round of the KGVO Coca-Cola Classic.

A crowd of 3,940 at the newly renovated Adams Center saw the host Grizzlies improve to 2-4 and avenge a 66-61 loss to Southeast on Nov. 27 in Cape Girardeau.

Montana will play tonight for the championship against either Idaho or Robert Morris, who were playing in Friday night's second game as the Southeast Missourian went to press.

The Grizzlies have advanced to the title contest of their own tournament all 20 years that the event has been held.

"They'll fire me if we don't make it to the finals," joked Montana coach Don Holst when asked the Grizzlies' key to success in first-round games of their tourney. "And I thought we played the best team in the tournament.

"Robert Morris didn't want to play us in the first round and we didn't want to open with (rival) Idaho. "

Southeast, which fell to 5-1, will play either Idaho or Robert Morris at 7:35 (CST) tonight for third place.

"The first loss is always disappointing, " said Southeast coach Gary Garner. "But it's more disappointing the way we lost. They just totally dominated us on the boards."

As far as Garner was concerned, rebounding was the biggest factor in Montana being able to come back from a six-point halftime deficit.

In the earlier meeting against Southeast, Montana was outrebounded by seven and the Indians had eight more offensive boards than the Grizzlies.

At halftime Friday night, Montana held a slight 17-16 rebounding edge. But the Grizzlies hammered the Indians on the boards in the final half to the tune of 29-13, including an 11-3 edge on the offensive end.

"It all came down to rebounding in the second half," Garner said. "They just kicked us on the boards in the second half. You won't have a chance to win any game like that.

"We told our players before the game that the most important part was going to be rebounding. We had such a bad effort on the boards in the second half."

Said Holst, "They kicked our butts on the offensive boards the first time. And we turned it over 21 times the first time, but we only had 11 turnovers tonight."

It also didn't help the Indians that they made just six of 13 free throws and missed the front end of several one-and-one situations.

In addition, the Indians struggled with their offense in the second half, shooting just 27 percent (seven of 26) after hitting 42 percent (11 of 26) in the opening 20 minutes.

Roderick Johnson paced the Indians with 15 points and 10 rebounds. But Johnson, who was 7-for-10 from the floor, was just 1-for-6 on free throws even though he shoots nearly 71 percent from the line on the season.

Michael Stokes added 12 points and six rebounds from his point guard position, but no other Indian had more than three rebounds.

Matt Williams was Montana's lone double-figure scorer with 16 points as nine Grizzlies found the scoring column.

"I thought we got contributions from all 10 players, which is what we have to do," Holst said.

Southeast got off to a slow start, being held scoreless for nearly three minutes as Montana grabbed an early 5-0 lead.

But the Indians finally got going a bit and took their first lead of the game on an Emmanuel McCuthison 3-pointer from several feet behind the line that made it 11-9 seven minutes into the contest.

Montana came back to lead by five points at 18-13, but the Indians controlled the rest of the first half. A Stokes 15-footer with 3:16 left put Southeast ahead 22-20 and the Indians carried a 27-21 lead into the break, thanks to Amory Sanders' 3-pointer with 1:11 remaining.

"The first half we hold them to 42 percent from the field, but they go five for 11 on 3-pointers, a few of them really deep," said Holst. "So it could have been a tie game, but they go in up six."

Southeast still led by six points at 38-32 with 12:21 remaining on a conventional three-point play by Nyah Jones.

But then the Grizzlies really started hitting the boards and Southeast went stale offensively.

Southeast scored only 10 points over the final 12:21 of the game and Montana used a 19-3 run to take control.

Dan Carter's two free throws with 9:11 left gave the Grizzlies their first lead since the opening half at 42-40.

Montana built a 51-41 advantage on Jared Buckmaster's 3-pointer with 5:13 remaining and Southeast could not recover.

The Indians were able to pull within 51-46 and failed on several possessions to draw even closer.

Montana iced the victory from the free-throw line, hitting nine of 10 foul shots in the final minute.

"It's disappointing, but we just have to bounce back (tonight)," Garner said.