Ward has surgery, out for rest of season

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Montana senior forward Mathias Ward had surgery Wednesday morning on his injured left foot and will miss the rest of the season, Coach Wayne Tinkle announced Wednesday afternoon.
Ward was injured on Feb. 16 in Montana?s 61-54 road win at Idaho State.

A 6-foot-7, 228-pound senior from Gig Harbor, Wash.,Ward had started the first 24 games of the season for the Grizzlies. He is the team?s leading scorer, averaging 14.8 points a game, which ranks him fifth in the Big Sky Conference. He is also ranked among the conference leaders in free throw percentage (81.7) and field goal percentage (51.0). He was named the Big Sky?s ?Player of the Week? twice this season.
?It was a deal where we were thinking about his future and getting that surgery done so that he might have opportunities to play in the future,? said Tinkle. ?It?s just too bad it had to happen late in the season in his senior year. We will definitely miss him out on the floor.

?But we?ve been pleased with the guys who have stepped up in his absence, guys like Mike (Weisner) and Spencer (Coleman). He?ll (Ward) be out there in spirit and with us on the bench, trying to help us motivate the guys.?

Ward was a starter on Montana?s conference champion and NCAA team of a year ago that went 25-7, and UM?s third leading scorer (10.9 ppg) that season. He averaged 21.0 points and 7.5 rebounds in UM?s wins over Eastern Washington and Weber State in the Big Sky?s 2012 postseason tournament, and was named to the all-tournament team.

 

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Griz glad to be home again





It?s been the better part of a month since the Montana men?s basketball team has stepped on the floor at Dahlberg Arena in the heat of battle.

A lot has transpired since then, but one thing hasn?t changed: The defending Big Sky champs are still on top heading into the final two games of the regular season.

If the Griz win their final two Thursday against Sacramento State and Saturday against Northern Arizona, the league?s postseason tournament will be in Missoula for the second straight season no matter what second-place Weber State does. The Griz could conceivably drop one and still host, but they?d likely need help from several teams to pull it off.

?It?s good to be back in the friendly confines and hopefully we won?t have skipped a beat when we hit the floor tomorrow night,? Griz coach Wayne Tinkle said.

The Griz will bring with them a 26-game home winning streak against Big Sky teams. Montana is 34-2 in its last 36 games against Big Sky teams, a remarkable stretch by any standard.

?I?m not sure that they do and I?m not sure that we do, really,? Tinkle said when asked if he thinks Griz fans truly realize what a roll his team is on. ?It?s so, ?let?s move on to the next thing,? that it?s hard to understand (what we?ve done). When you do try to step out of yourself for a second, it?s been a pretty incredible run. But our guys know that everything is still hovering right in front of us.?

One thing that?s changed since the Griz last played in Missoula is the starting lineup. Seniors Mathias Ward and Will Cherry are out with foot injuries. Ward had surgery Wednesday and is out for the remainder of the season. Cherry, though, said Wednesday that he?s feeling much better and would like to try to play Saturday on senior night, but definitely next week in the Big Sky tourney.

?I know that he?s going to do some limited stress tests on the floor with (athletic trainer Dennis) Murphy (Wednesday), then kind of go from there,? Tinkle said. ?I still think it will be a week out before he can play, but we?ll see how he feels.?

The Griz responded to the loss of Ward and Cherry by sweeping Montana State and Southern Utah on the road. The latter game was just Monday night, so the Griz might need a little boost from their fans to get their legs back.

?Gosh, I mean it would really be nice to see over 6,000 or 6,500, or sold out,? Tinkle said. ?When you look at what this team has done in the last two years and the way we?ve done it this year with everything we?ve faced, you?d sure like to think that the people would show up. But there?s state tournaments going on, so there?s things that are out of our control. That?s where we have to keep our focus, on the things that we can control.?

The Griz took Tuesday off and had a light practice on Wednesday to recover.

?We mentioned after the (Southern Utah) game, it?s more about mental preparation, from what they see in video, what we walk them through (Thursday) in shoot-around,? Tinkle said. ?We can?t get out on the court and work on a bunch of stuff because our guys are pretty beat up.?

The Griz haven?t seen either Sac State or NAU since the first week of league play back before Christmas.

?These are the two teams that we?re the least familiar with because it has been so long,? Tinkle said. ?We?ll make sure we dive in hard. The assistant coaches have been diving in since we were on the road trip, so we?ll have a plan in place.?

The Hornets will start the same lineup the Griz saw in Sacramento. Senior forward John Dickson leads them in scoring at 12.7 ppg, but sophomore guard Mikh McKinney is close behind at 12.3 ppg. Joe Eberhard (6.9 ppg) mans the other forward spot, sophomore Dylan Garrity (11.8 ppg) runs the show from the point, and 6-foot-8, 290-pound senior center Konner Veteto holds down the middle.

The one big difference is that junior guard Jackson Carbajal has returned to action. He missed the first meeting with a knee problem.

?They control tempo,? Tinkle said of the Hornets, who rank third in the league in scoring defense at 63.6 ppg. ?Offensively, they make you defend them for a while. They mix some different defenses in to try to keep you on your heels. We have to be patient defensively, especially if (Will Cherry) is not going to be out there. We can?t be flying around gambling, otherwise we?ll play right into their hands.?