by Zachary Knecht
Featured Image: Photo by Weber State Athletics
Weber State Basketball Recap
Wow! The Weber State Wildcats march into the Dahlberg Arena and take down Montana Grizzlies 59-57 in thrilling fashion. With the victory, the Wildcats improve to 8-9 on the season with a 3-1 conference record to keep pace in the Big Sky conference.
Collectively, this game showed one of the most impressive victories for the ‘Cats in their early campaign. The signature win came with a great effort from the team and some magnificent individual performances.
Offensive Flow
As it has for much of this season, the offensive depth of this roster stepped up to the plate in an important game for the ‘Cats with Dillon Jones being the star of the show. He had a ridiculous 17 points and 21 rebounds – his new career high in boards. Jones absolutely dominated this Grizzly team on his way to his ninth double-double of the season, but the heroics of Dyson Koehler and Steven Verplancken Jr. stole the show in the end.
With only 4.9 seconds left in regulation, Koehler was in the right place at the right time, stealing the ball from Montana. He kicked the ball out to Steven Verplancken Jr., who nailed the game-winning three-pointer with only one-second remaining. The rest is history.
Defensive Masterpiece
To go into an opponent’s home and shut them down as the Wildcats did is an impressive feat for any team. Coming into Thursday’s game, the Grizzlies were averaging 70.1 PPG, and the ‘Cats’ effort was enough to keep them 13 points shy of that mark.
The Grizzlies shot below averaging, hitting 40.8% from the field and 33.3% from three. Weber State also managed to keep Montana from getting to the free-throw line, limiting them to only 11 attempts, while they converted on eight.
The most impressive part of the victory was winning the rebounding battle 35-28, a good chunk of it thanks to the performance of Dillon Jones. They took advantage of their opportunities and limited Montana’s, and that’s all a team can ask for.
Though the Grizzlies had a couple of solid performers, like Aanen Moody’s team-leading 17 points, it was not enough, in the end, to leave with the victory.
Ball Security
There were fairly few takeaways for either squad in the contest with each team having eight turnovers. In a game like this that came down to the very last second, every possession matters, and the safe play of the Weber State offense was a deciding factor in the win.
It’s never going to be easy, but winning the rebounding and turnover battles will play major roles in any game, and this Wildcat team executed that to perfection.
Next in Line
The Wildcats’ road trip will continue into Montana State to go head-to-head with the Bobcats, where they are viewed as eight-point underdogs.
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| Weber State Starters | PTS | REB | AST | FG | 3PT | MIN |
| Dillon Jones, F | 17 | 21 | 3 | 5-12 | 5-7 | 40 |
| Steven Verplancken Jr., G | 12 | 1 | 1 | 5-12 | 2-5 | 33 |
| Alex Tew, C | 10 | 7 | 1 | 3-7 | 0-0 | 28 |
| KJ Cunningham, G | 9 | 0 | 1 | 4-8 | 1-4 | 33 |
| Dyson Koehler, F | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0-3 | 0-2 | 21 |
| Bench | ||||||
| Junior Ballard, G | 9 | 0 | 0 | 2-5 | 0-0 | 22 |
| Handje Tamba, C | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1-1 | 0-0 | 11 |
| Zahir Porter, G | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0-3 | 0-1 | 7 |
| Louie Jordan, F | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 5 |
| Daniel Rouzan, F | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 |
| Team Total | 59 | 35 | 10 | 20-51 | 8-19 |
| Montana Starters | PTS | REB | AST | FG | 3PT | MIN |
| Aanen Moody, G | 17 | 3 | 2 | 5-11 | 3-7 | 40 |
| Josh Bannan, F | 12 | 7 | 6 | 6-11 | 0-2 | 32 |
| Dischon Thomas, F | 11 | 4 | 0 | 4-10 | 3-6 | 29 |
| Lonell Martin Jr., G | 8 | 3 | 2 | 3-8 | 2-6 | 35 |
| Brandon Whitney, G | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1-5 | 0-2 | 19 |
| Bench | ||||||
| Mack Anderson, F | 4 | 7 | 1 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 23 |
| Josh Vazquez, G | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1-3 | 1-3 | 17 |
| Jaxon Nap, F | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0-1 | 0-1 | 5 |
| Team Total | 57 | 28 | 12 | 20-49 | 9-27 |
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