Montana State University
14-17,9-9Big Sky
Idaho
13-18,8-10Big Sky
Seniors Lead Cats to 75-60 Win Over Idaho
3/3/2025 11:09:00 PM | Men's Basketball
Montana State closes the regular season with demonstrative win over Idaho to take momentum into Boise next week
BOZEMAN, Mont. -- On an emotional Senior Night in Bozeman, it was the six Montana State seniors who made sure their last game in Worthington Arena ended in victory.
Montana State cruised to a 75-60 win over Idaho on Monday night to finish the regular season .500 in conference play and earn the No. 5 seed in next week's Big Sky Tournament.
The six Bobcat seniors playing the last home game of their careers combined for 41 of MSU's 75 points, spearheading a deadly offensive attack that shot 56.0% from the floor and shared the ball to the tune of 16 assists—including on 11 of their 15 made field goals in the first half.
The 16 assists were the second-most in a game for the Cats this season since December 18, 2024, beat out only by the 23 assists they had in the 87-60 win over Sacramento State just two days ago.
"We've really been playing with great togetherness and great pace," head coach Matt Logie said. "Three of our last four halves we've put 40-plus points on the board. When we're able to get multiple touches of the paint—a lot of people think of paint touches as post-ups, but we can get a lot of them through penetration and attacking closeouts, getting out in transition—we're able to put up 40 points in the paint tonight. It wasn't because we sat around the basket, but we were out and moving with great togetherness."
Patrick McMahon scored a career-high 23 points off the bench, going 9-of-15 from the field. The redshirt junior from Palmer, Alaska, scored 15 in the second half alone as Montana State (14-17, 9-9) eased away from Idaho (13-18, 8-10).
The 'Cats led by as many 20 late in the second half before emptying the bench, shooting 65.0% from the floor in the final 20 minutes after taking a 41-31 advantage into the locker room at halftime.
With the win, Montana State assured a 9-9 mark in Big Sky play. The Cats have not had a losing conference record since the 2017-18 season.
Montana State also put the finishing touches on an 11-3 season at Brick Breeden Fieldhouse, including a 7-2 mark against Big Sky foes.
A large reason for that was the play of a stifling defense that quickly rotated to shooters and prevented paint touches on dribble-drives, limiting the Vandals to a point total more than 15 below their season average.
"Credit to our defense tonight," Logie said. "To hold that team basically below 60 points until that last three and under 40 percent from the field while really defending the three-point line well—that's a team that can really get out and score, so that's a great sign for our defense."
Idaho came into Monday leading the Big Sky in three-point shooting by a large margin, but shot just 5-of-22 (22.7%) from beyond the arc against a lengthy Montana State perimeter.
Sam Lecholat came out firing, scoring ten points in the first with four boards while making three of his first four shots.
The senior from Sheridan, Wyoming, got his points in his usual hustling ways—cutting ferociously towards the cup and finishing through contact.
Fellow senior Jabe Mullins, making his second straight start after an otherworldly tear off the bench the previous month, scored ten points with five rebounds and a pair of 3-pointers.
Jed Miller added six points and seven rebounds off the bench, but it was fellow second unit star Chika Nduka who stole the show in his best game of the season.
The senior from Seattle, Washington, scored six points on 3-of-3 shooting, adding a pair of beautiful assists on backdoor pocket passes.
Nduka had scored just ten points in the previous 11 games before chipping in four in Saturday's blowout win over Sacramento State ahead of the six he had against Idaho on Senior Night.
Max Agbonkpolo scored seven points with two rebounds and two assists.
Nine players saw at least 15 minutes of action in the balanced team effort.
Montana State dominated inside, going 28-of-37 on two-point shot attempts and scoring 40 points in the paint.
The Cats' led by double-digits most of the night after pulling away in the final minutes of the first half, but the Vandals made their charge to cut it to a six-point affair at 60-54 with 15:37 to play.
A media timeout allowed MSU to reset, and they calmly went back to finding paint touches and diving cutters.
Buckets from Nduka and Mullins pushed the lead back out to double-digits, and after a few Idaho answers, the game became The Patrick McMahon Show.
The wing scored six straight points to put the game on ice and give Montana State a satisfying win that avenged a 69-64 loss to the Vandals in the Big Sky opener.
UP NEXT
No. 5 seed Montana State will face No. 4 seed Idaho State in the third round of the 2025 Big Sky Basketball Championships on Monday, March 10, at 5:30 p.m.
Tip from Idaho Central Arena is scheduled for 5:30 p.m., with the winner advancing to the semifinals.
The Cats will take a nine-game winning streak in Boise back to the conference tournament next week.
Montana State has appeared in four straight Big Sky Tournament championship games, winning three consecutive conference tournament titles to punch tickets to three straight NCAA Tournaments.
#GoCatsGo
