DENVER — The season came to a close for the Montana Grizzlies on Thursday at Ball Arena as Montana fell to Wisconsin 85-66 in the opening round of the NCAA men's basketball tournament.
But for the Griz, there were plenty of highs throughout the season as they got back on top of the Big Sky Conference and made history along the way.
"It's special man, it's special," senior forward Joe Pridgen said. "A lot of guys in the locker room have never done anything like this before, including myself, so just to be able to do it, it's just a good feeling. You participate in college athletics for a reason. You come to Missoula for a reason. It's just special."
It wasn't the result UM wanted on Thursday, but there was still plenty to celebrate about the season the Griz put together.
Milestones fell along the way, like head coach Travis DeCuire becoming the program's all-time wins leader and fifth-year senior Brandon Whitney breaking all sorts of records including the program's assists mark, which was previously held by DeCuire.
Then of course, to top it all off was winning a share of the Big Sky regular-season title for the first time since 2019, which they then followed up on with a tournament championship in Boise, Idaho, to cap it all off.
"This is why I came back for my fifth year," Whitney said. "I dreamt of this when I was a little kid, was to play in the NCAA tournament. We had a great season, this is by far one of the best teams I've been on since I've been at Montana. This will be family forever."
"This team has been through a lot of adversity," senior forward Te'Jon Sawyer added. "One of the most that I've been a part, not only just myself, but down the line all 16 (guys) had some type of adversity, so it was just us showing we can fight through some battles. We had a lot of close games showing that heart. So, I think that's a team to be remembered."
It was a group of unknowns before everything started with so many new additions that eventually turned into a force as one unit that brought the Grizzlies back a pair of trophies once again.
"It was great. Usually when you get a lot of transfers it's hard to know who's going to be good people, easy to talk to and all that, have big egos," junior guard Malik Moore said. "I think we all put our egos aside and we wanted to win, and that's how we got here. We didn't finish how we wanted to, but I'm still happy we made it here."
So the Grizzlies close the season at 25-10 with this return trip to the NCAA tournament. And now it's full steam ahead to the offseason as Montana gears up for next winter.
It's on to building next year's team, and with seniors gone and the transfer frenzy expected to be high once again around college basketball, there could be a lot of new faces suiting up for the Grizzlies once again next season.
"From day one, before COVID, I always believed you replaced seniors with freshmen, high school kids, and you replace transfers with transfers," DeCuire said. "You're losing experience. Experience can't be replaced by 17-, 18-year-olds and so the same has continued with us in the new age of the portal. We replace transfers with transfers, so if the guys that have eligibility, if they walk out the door, we'll go find some replacements."
