MISSOULA — The Montana Grizzlies are still soaking up their selection for this year's men's NCAA tournament.
Montana is a No. 14 seed and will take on No. 3 Wisconsin after winning the Big Sky Conference tournament. For Montana, the celebrations have been great, but now it's full steam ahead and all business as the mindset for UM has now shifted as it prepares for the tall task of the Badgers on Thursday in Denver.
"One of the big things we focused on was not getting complacent this year," senior guard Austin Patterson said. "And I think that was why we went on our 10-game win streak. And you know, I don't think we're complacent now, and I don't think we should be at all. We got to get back to work."
It'd been six years since the Griz last qualified for the Big Dance, a timeline that felt like a long drought for a program that has built a culture and expectation of winning the Big Sky each year.
"It's special to be here and be in a program that six years is called a drought, right?" UM head coach Travis DeCuire said. "I mean, we're often competing in recruiting with programs that haven't been in 20-30 years or ever. So at this level to to be considered a drought in six years is a great situation to be in."
So when Montana achieved that last Wednesday in Boise, Idaho — the third Big Sky tournament title under DeCuire — the climb was complete.
"To be able to sit back on March 12 and watch the guys celebrate was huge because I think that this was a team that deferred probably to one another more than any team I've ever been a part of," DeCuire said.
"It’s been awesome," senior guard Joe Pridgen added. "I think the coaching staff, just the Grizzly culture, Missoula, I think all these people deserve it. I think they deserve to be able to come watch winners and just to have a team that’s, you know, kind of the face of what this city and what this program is about."
Numerous goals have been checked off this season as UM won a share of the Big Sky regular season title, the tournament championship, and DeCuire rewrote the all-time wins record for the program as well with 226 currently, but the Big Sky has yet to have a tournament victor since the Grizzlies did it in 2006.
So Montana (25-9) will again attempt to play spoiler and create a magical run of its own.
"It changes lives, whether it's the players, whether it's the coaches, whether it's the program, whether it's the administrators that contribute to the program," DeCuire said. "Everyone wins when they're a part of success like that when a mid- or low-major makes a run.
"But that's not the reason. That's not what motivates us. For us, it's just an opportunity to go out and compete with one another."
"It would mean everything," Patterson said. "I've always dreamed of going to the NCAA tournament and I've always dreamed of going on those big runs. You know, being a little Cinderella team. But I think we legitimately have a chance. I believe in this team a lot, our coaching staff believes in this team a lot. So I'm just super excited for it."
"It would be awesome to put Montana on a bigger stage," Pridgen added. "I think all the love we would get, you know, all the criticism we'd also get, I just think it'd be cool to be a part of that.
"I think it's very possible. I'm not going to try to think too much about what-ifs, you know, just going to think about trying to go make it happen."
