After getting upset in the first round of last year’s NCAA Tournament by James Madison, Wisconsin ensured there would be no such bracket-busting on Thursday at Ball Arena.
In Denver’s 2025 March Madness opening game, No. 3 Wisconsin controlled the tempo the whole way against No. 14 Montana. The Badgers used their significant size advantage and superior shooting to pull away in the second half for an 85-66 win.
The performance all but erased the disappointment of last year, when the then-No. 5 Badgers fell to No. 12 James Madison in Brooklyn.
“We were trying to get that taste out of our mouth from last year,” said Wisconsin’s most tenured player Steven Crowl, “and I think this (win) did it.”
Montana’s Kai Johnson drilled a 3 on the Grizzlies’ first possession, giving them an early 3-2 advantage. But it was the first and only lead that Montana would have on the day.
Wisconsin, with the majority of crowd support, started to pull away in the middle of the first half as Montana’s offense hit a lull. A couple of 3s by former CSU Rams star John Tonje helped generate the buffer, as did the play of Crowl. The 7-footer was a handful inside and also hit a couple 3s, one of which gave Wisconsin its first double-digit lead.
“Every time we were able to almost bust it open (they fought back) — get it to an 11 (-point lead), they hit a 3, we got it to 7, they hit 3,” Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard said.
In the paint, Montana’s Te’Jon Sawyer did his best to contain Crowl and the Badgers’ other 7-footer, Nolan Winter. The physicality of Joe Pridgen also helped keep that duo from taking over the game early despite having four inches on Sawyer and seven inches on Pridgen.
Crowl finished with 18 points on the day, while Badges guard John Blackwell led all scorers with 19. Tonje had 15, and Winter had 10. Montana was paced by 15 points from both Sawyer and Johnson, while Pridgen had 12.
Just when it looked like Wisconsin was going to open up a big lead heading into halftime, the Big Sky champions battled back to cut it to a 40-32 deficit at the break. Sawyer led with a couple of buckets in the waning minutes as Gard assessed that his Badgers “were a little choppy at times offensively in the first half.”
Out of halftime, a pair of Pridgen layups cut the score to 40-36 and had Montana firmly in the game. But the Badgers wouldn’t relent the lead, and the same thing happened about five minutes later, when the score was 51-47 yet Wisconsin found another way to re-bottle momentum.
Both times, Montana’s height disparity was exploited as Crowl had several touch finishes around the rim. Then at the 13:13 mark, a Winter 3 extended the lead to a game-high 12 points, and the Grizzlies were unable to get within shouting distance after that.
Montana finished shooting 39.7% from the field, not near well enough to take down Wisconsin, which shot 55.4%.
“We had more bite to us (in the second half), and didn’t let them get into our paint as easy,” John Blackwell said.
Down the stretch, the Montana offense sputtered while Crowl found his rhythm. Pridgen, playing with four fouls, couldn’t be as aggressive defensively. Meanwhile, from the perimeter, Blackwell kept knocking down shots. By the time Tonje hit a couple of free throws with about eight minutes left, the lead was 18 and Montana’s hopes of an upset were all but extinguished.
“For stretches of the game, we showed that we could play with them,” Montana head coach Travis DeCuire said. “We just couldn’t sustain it. We had some stretches where we didn’t execute very well. A good basketball team met a better basketball team today.”
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