Against All Odds : Montana’s Seeding Amounts to No. 64 in Field, but the Grizzlies Are Game for No. 1 UNLV

It happened the other night.

Baby-faced Gary Kane, a freshman guard who has one of those “Up With People” smiles and actually drives home on most weekends just to eat his mom’s cooking, had a vision. Or was it a nightmare?

While reading a chapter on Japanese economics, Kane turned the page and suddenly, there he was.

Anderson Hunt.

That would be the same Anderson Hunt who plays guard for No. 1-ranked and undefeated Nevada Las Vegas. And everyone knows about UNLV, the supposed greatest-team-ever-assembled, the team expected to win a second consecutive national championship, the team predicted to wipe the floor Friday night with Montana, as if the Grizzlies were an NCAA tournament-issued chamois.

Kane stared at the page for 45 minutes, his eyes transfixed on the inner workings of the Japanese market system but his mind spellbound by the thought of playing against Hunt, whom he watched on television half a dozen times this season.

“After a while I just closed the book,” he said. “I was getting no work done.”

Roger Fasting knows the feeling. All week long Fasting, another Montana guard, has been consumed by the idea of stepping onto the same court with Las Vegas. It is the last thing he remembers before falling asleep and the first thing he thinks of when he awakes.

“People talk about David and Goliath,” he said. “Well, I’d say we’re David’s younger brother and they’re Goliath’s dad.”

Or worse. One oddsmaker, Danny Sheridan of USA Today, made Montana a billion-to-one shot to win the NCAA tournament. A billion to one . David got better odds against the Philistine.

“You kind of have to laugh it off,” said center Daren Engellant, who is being asked to stop UNLV’s dunking machine, George Ackles. “I guess if you’re going to climb a mountain, you might as well climb Mt. Everest. I just didn’t think I’d climb it in a pair of tennis shoes.”

Nobody did. When the NCAA selection committee released the pairings last Sunday, you could have heard a jaw drop in this city of 72,000. At Coach Stew Morrill’s house, where the Montana team was gathered to watch the tournament show, no one uttered a sound when the Grizzlies’ name was placed next to UNLV’s. “A moment of silence--for about 30 seconds,” is how Fasting described it.

Morrill expected a low seeding, but this? Sure, no one confuses the Big Sky with the Big East, but the Grizzlies did win the regular-season title and the conference tournament. That should count for something, right?

According to the selection committee, it counted for what amounts to the 64th and final place in the NCAA tournament--take it or leave it. Montana, which hasn’t been invited to the tournament since 1975, gladly took it. But. . . .

“Before this started, I said that if we won the regular season and our tournament that I wouldn’t care if we played the Lakers,” Morrill said. “Hey, I didn’t mean it, guys. UNLV is like a pro team.”

Strange how this works out. Montana’s last NCAA appearance was Jerry Tarkanian’s first as a UNLV coach. The Rebels beat the Grizzlies in a second-round consolation game.

Also, that 1975 Montana team was coached by the combative Jud Heathcote, who later won a national championship at Michigan State. If all goes as predicted, Heathcote and Tarkanian could meet again in the West Regional semifinal. Of course, once a Montana man, always a Montana man: Earlier this week, Heathcote spent considerable time on the phone with Morrill swapping strategies to beat Las Vegas.

Everyone, it seems, has a plan to upset UNLV. A high school coach in the Midwest phoned Morrill wanting to pitch something called “the Butterfly Defense.” Guaranteed to work, the prep coach said. Morrill declined.

A Montana psychology professor offered his services. Morrill politely said no thanks. What he really needs is a 7-2 center who can shoot and has at least a postseason’s worth of eligibility left.

“I’ve got a stack of messages this high,” he said.

The phone rings. Morrill does nothing at first and then reaches across his desk, pinches the phone jack and pulls out the cord.

“My favorite weapon,” he said.

This is Morrill’s fifth season as Montana’s head coach. He never has won fewer than 18 games and never has lost more than 11. There hasn’t been a losing season here since 1970-71, which is why Heathcote was hired.

When Heathcote left, Jim Brandenburg came in and won 31 games in two seasons (that is, if you don’t count the 11 games Montana had to forfeit in 1977 because of an ineligible player). Mike Montgomery succeeded him and averaged 19 victories during his eight-year tenure before accepting the Stanford job. Morrill, a Montana assistant for each of those eight years, was offered the job 90 minutes after Montgomery resigned.

Despite the impressive list of victories, Montana had only the one NCAA appearance. Grizzly followers, as fervent and loyal as any fans, began to get restless.

“It’s not easy in Missoula,” Montgomery said. “They expect a lot. They live in Montana because they want to, and to them, there’s no reason in their minds why you can’t beat everybody every night.”

So it was with great satisfaction and relief that Morrill and his staff spent last Saturday night--and into the wee hours of Sunday--celebrating Montana’s Big Sky tournament championship and the NCAA berth that came with it. The mood wasn’t quite so joyous Sunday evening when Morrill slipped a cassette into his VCR and began watching UNLV bludgeon Duke in last season’s title game.

Montgomery tried to do his part. He called Morrill, offered his congratulations and asked about Montana’s chances against UNLV. Like any good coach, Morrill said he was optimistic.

“If you tell your assistants to get some tape of Georgetown, then I’ll know you’re really optimistic,” Montgomery said.

Georgetown, if it beats Vanderbilt, will play the winner of the UNLV-Montana game.

Morrill doesn’t expect many Montana fans to make their way to Tucson for the game. Only 250 tickets were available, and many of those have gone unsold. After all, it is at least a 13-hour drive to Arizona or a $1,000 airplane ticket. Who has that kind of time or money to watch what Morrill calls “the ultimate longshot?”

Instead, Missoulans have chosen to stay put. They will watch their Grizzlies at home or in the cozy neighborhood taverns that serve as mini-meeting halls.

For instance, there is Stockman’s Bar. You would know Stockman’s Bar if you saw it. It’s where Dennis R. Washington, a mining and construction entrepreneur and one of the 500 richest people in the country, drinks his beer and talks to anyone who will listen about Montana athletics. The football stadium is named after Washington, who chipped in a cool million to the school.

At Stockman’s, two empty tables await the 8 p.m. gambling crowd. Poker and keno are legal in Montana and if local folks have their way, blackjack will be, too. The way Missoulians figure it, it’s their damn money, so let them lose it any way they want. That includes betting on their beloved Grizzlies, billion-to-one odds or not.

Brokers, bankers, students, salesmen and even little old ladies wander into Stockman’s.

Brad Shefloe is a regular. Shefloe, an accountant who also owns several area nursing homes, is a die-hard Montana fan. Once, after wrangling a seat on press row, he almost drew a technical foul for yelling at a referee. Shefloe is passionate that way.

Down the street at Gordie Fix’s place, The Pressbox Casino, there hangs an original oil painting that features Grizzly basketball players in action. The artist mentioned something about selling prints of the painting. Dave Guffey, Montana’s sports information director, suggested he might want to do it before the UNLV game.

There is no other topic in town. At the local McDonald’s, a customer and cashier trade predictions on the outcome of the game. The customer is hopeful. The cashier is not.

“They’ve got about as much chance of winning as I do being elected president,” he said.

At Dahlberg Arena, where the Grizzlies play and practice, a larger-than-usual crowd has assembled in the stands. Hanging from the rafters is a collection of championship banners. In an advertising twist, sponsor banners also grace the arena. Spectators can admire past athletic deeds and the Taco John’s sign at the same time.

“I just hope they can give them a game like they did in 1975,” said an older gentlemen, who has been observing the two-hour Montana practice.

“That’d be nice,” said an elderly woman seated nearby.

In Grizzly lore, the 1975 team is the standard by which all Montana squads are measured. Winners of 20 regular-season games, the Grizzlies defeated Utah State in the first round of the NCAA West Regional in Pullman, Wash., and then prepared for their next opponent, UCLA.

“They were the program at the time,” said Eric Hays, who played for Montana in 1975. “It was UCLA, the epitome of college basketball. You thought about them all the time.”

Sound familiar?

It was also John Wooden’s last season at UCLA, which is interesting because this also might be Tarkanian’s last season at UNLV. Only 32 teams were invited to the tournament then, and none, with the exception of Indiana that year, was more respected than the Bruins.

“They were probably four or five inches taller than we were at every position,” Hays said. “And they had that aura, where they thought they weren’t going to lose an NCAA tournament game.”

At tipoff, Hays found himself guarded by Marques Johnson. That didn’t last long. Hays, his jump shot working as never before, scored 19 points in the first half. He was nine for nine and the Grizzlies trailed, 34-33.

“They were pressing us,” Hays said, as if that explains why he didn’t miss a shot.

Wooden then assigned David Meyers the job of stopping Hays. The move sort of worked. Hays missed three shots in the second half but still finished with 32 points, seven rebounds, six assists, three steals and a near-monumental upset. The Bruins won, 67-64, but it wasn’t easy.

Hays, a math teacher and boys’ basketball coach for the past 14 years at nearby Hellgate High (favorite cheer: “Go to Hell . . . gate”), is a hero here. At the state tournament two weeks ago, people kept asking him about the UCLA game. To his amazement, they can tell him where they were that night, who they were with, what kind of radio they listened to. No wonder Hays never has to pay for a beer in this town.

“We were Montana that night,” he said. “I’m sure the state’s going to be that same way Friday night.”

Of course, no need to mention what Hays did against UNLV in the West Regional consolation game (seven points as Montana lost, 75-67).

Life moves at a leisurely pace in Missoula, and no doubt it will move even more slowly Friday as Grizzly fans hunker down for an evening in front of the TV. They will see mighty UNLV and its fab five of Hunt, Johnson, Ackles, Stacey Augmon and Greg Anthony.

And they will see their Grizzlies, led by a head coach who hasn’t been sleeping well. A nervous eater, Morrill’s waistline and worry lines are growing at the same rate.

“What is (UNLV’s) weakness?” he asked, knowing full well the Rebels have no glaring flaw.

During practices, Morrill has found himself confronted with wide-eyed, awe-struck players, still not convinced they were about to face the nation’s No. 1 team.

“I’ll say, ‘You got Augmon, you got Johnson,’ ” Morrill said. “Then I’ll look at them and it’s like I’ve been telling them, ‘You got Magic Johnson.’ ”

Kevin Kearney is Montana’s best player and leading scorer. He has tried to remain calm, but it is hard. He stayed up until 2:30 a.m. last Monday simply to watch himself on ESPN. He can’t sleep. He can’t study.

His game assignment: score lots of points and stop Johnson, possibly the player of the year.

Now then, does he think Johnson is experiencing the same anxiety?

“I doubt it, but hopefully when the game is over, at least he’ll know who I am.”

No Montana player is conceding the game. Kane loses his smile when the idea is mentioned. “Montanans are the friendliest people on earth, but we never say die,” he said.

He might want to start practicing.

Senior guard Eric Jordan predicted that UNLV has “kind of looked past us.” If so, Jordan said the Rebels are in for a mild surprise.

Other players are more realistic.

“We weren’t expecting to win the national championship,” Fasting said. “But this is where dreams come true. People that have played a lot of basketball know that. We could play the best game of our lives, and they could play the worst games of their lives. You never know what will happen.”

On Wednesday, a few hours before the Montana team boarded its bus for the Missoula airport, Professor John Ellis trudged up the stairs of the school’s historic Main Hall clock tower and took his place at the keyboard of the carillon, which is a set of 47 tuned bells. As the hour hand struck 12, Ellis began to play.

Soon the notes could be heard from one end of this town to the other. They caromed off nearby Mt. Sentinel and rode the winds through Hellgate Canyon and along the Clark Fork River. So fairy-tale-like were the sounds, it was if someone has opened a giant music box.

It was not a death knell, played in honor of the NCAA’s longest of longshots. The music was sweet and innocent, like the Grizzlies themselves.