San Francisco began the game about as well as a team can. Their defense held the Grizzlies to just one basket, out of six attempts, by the under-16 media timeout. On the offensive end the Dons didn't miss a shot until the 12:41 mark. Montana had only made two of nine field goals at that point and trailed 14-5.
Montana could not stop the Dons in the paint, where they scored 24 of their 34 first half points. Tim Derksen found easy driving lanes to the hoop while big Kruize Pinkins simply overpowered the Grizzlies on the block.
Pinkins led the Dons with 12 points in the first half. A heave from three at the buzzer was his only miss of the half.
Montana opened the second half with a much better shooting performance than they displayed in the first. The Grizzlies hit their first four shots to pull within eleven. San Francisco only managed scoring from the free throw stripe over that span.
The Grizzlies are a middle-of-the-pack shooting team this season, but the Dons' defense was stifling tonight. After their first four shots fell the Grizzlies missed seven of eight. Their one make, a Martin Breunig dunk, came only after a scramble for the rebound caused the Dons' defense to fall apart. The Dons ran their lead over 20 points.
San Francisco's defense kept Montana to 33% shooting on the night, well below their season average of 43.9%.
While a 19 point loss isn't exactly respectable, the Grizzlies kept it from getting embarrassing with eight of their 10 threes coming in the second half.
With 4:21 left to play the foul trouble the Grizzlies had been getting into all game finally caught up to them as Mike Weisner fouled out of the game. Jordan Gregory was the only Montana starter with less than four fouls.
Pinkins' career high 26 led all scorers. He connected on nine of his 11 attempts on the night and went 7-7 from the free throw line. Other Dons in double-figures were Tim Derksen (17 points on 6-7 shooting) and Mark Tollefsen (15 points on 4-6 shooting).
San Francisco outscored Montana 40-18 in the paint.
Martin Breunig (14 points) was the only Montana player to shoot the ball well. He connected on six of his eight shots from the field.
San Francisco improves to 4-2 on the season while Montana falls to 2-3.