BOZEMAN, Mont. — Montana State men’s basketball wraps up the non-conference schedule with another high major opponent on Sunday afternoon, taking on TCU in Fort Worth, Texas.
Tip is set for 12 p.m. MT/1 p.m. CT from Schollmaier Arena.
The game will be streamed on ESPN+, with live radio play-by-play from Voice of the Bobcats Keaton Gillogly airing on the Bobcat Sports Network.
TCU (6-4, 0-0 Big 12) will be the fourth Power Four team that Montana State (5-7, 0-0 Big Sky) has faced this season as the Cats look for a signature win to cap a gauntlet of games before Big Sky play.
The Horned Frogs are the third team that the Bobcats are facing that were a single-digit seed in last year’s NCAA Tournament (No. 5 Wisconsin, No. 9 Northwestern, No. 9 TCU).
TCU and Montana State have both participated in March Madness each of the last three seasons. Last year, Montana State fell in the First Four to Grambling State, while TCU lost in the First Round to Danny Sprinkle’s Utah State team.
Montana State challenged (rv) Wisconsin in the season opener and fell by just three points to Northwestern on the road in their first two tries at a Power Four win, then lost to USC last Sunday in Los Angeles.
The Bobcats defeated Cal last season in Berkeley on November 16, MSU’s first road win over a Power Four opponent since knocking off Utah in Salt Lake City in 2011.
Sunday marks the final non-conference test for the Cats before Big Sky play starts in the new year with trips to Idaho (Jan. 2) and Eastern Washington (Jan. 4).
TALE OF TWO HALVES
Montana State shot 61.1% from the floor in the first half of Wednesday’s loss to UC Riverside, putting up 53 points to lead by 12 at halftime. However, the Cats’ defense struggled in the second half, allowing the Highlanders to out-score them 42-27 in the final 20 minutes en route to an 83-80 defeat. Montana State is 0-4 in games decided by three or fewer points this season.
DFW KID RETURNS HOME
Brandon Walker, a native of Oak Cliff, Texas, a neighborhood outside Dallas, will look to capitalize on his homecoming to the DFW. Walker is coming off a career-high 31 points on 14-of-20 (70.0%) shooting in Wednesday’s loss to UC Riverside, and ranks sixth in the Big Sky in scoring average (15.7 ppg) and fifth in field goal percentage (.545). Walker is averaging 19.5 points per game over his last four outings, shooting 32-of-52 (61.5%) over that stretch. Walker was named Honorable Mention All-Big Sky last year in his first year as a Bobcat after transferring to Montana State following one season at UT Arlington (2022-23), where he played in 32 games.
NCAA TOURNAMENT REGULARS
Montana State and TCU have each appeared in the last three NCAA Tournaments. The Bobcats were a No. 14 seed in 2022, a No. 14 seed in 2023, and a No. 16 seed in 2024. The Horned Frogs were a No. 9 seed in 2022, a No. 6 seed in 2023, and a No. 9 seed in 2024, reaching the Round of 32 in both 2022 and 2023 with wins over Seton Hall and Arizona State, respectively. Last season, TCU fell to No. 8 seed Utah State in the first round, a team led by former MSU standouts Great Osobor in the frontcourt and Darius Brown II in the backcourt, as well as former Montana State head coach and player Danny Sprinkle on the sideline.
SLIM REAPER
Max Agbonkpolo scored 20 points and added six rebounds in the loss to UC Riverside on Wednesday, notching his second career 20-point game. The graduate student is playing his final year of college basketball after stops at USC (2019-22), Wyoming (2022-23), and Utah State (2023-24) and is enjoying a career-best season, averaging 12.3 points, 5.5 rebounds and 1.1 steals per game while shooting 45.7% from the floor and 36.2% from beyond the arc. Agbonkpolo has scored at least 13 points in five of his last six games.
SHARE IT, SHOOT IT
Montana State tallied 18 assists to just three turnovers in Wednesday’s loss at UC Riverside. The Bobcats rank 49th in the country in assist-to-turnover ratio (1.50) and are 38th in turnovers per game (10.2)
AT THE ARC AND AT THE LINE
The Bobcats rank 19th in NCAA Division I in three-point defense (27.9%), but have had unfortunate luck in opponent success at the free throw line. Teams are shooting 80.2% at the free throw line against Montana State–the second-highest mark in the country.
HORNED FROG NOTES
All four of TCU’s losses have come to KenPom ranked top-100 opponents (Michigan, Santa Clara, Colorado State, Xavier). TCU boasts the 29th ranked defense in the country by adjusted efficiency, ranking 33rd in three-point defense (28.9%).
WINGSPAN
Montana State is 17th in the country in average on-court height (78.7″)
BY THE METRICS
The Bobcats are the top-ranked team in the Big Sky in KenPom (No. 148) and the NET (No. 139)
DIFFICULT NON-CONFERENCE
Eight of the 12 teams the Cats face in the non-conference finished with records of at least .500 or played in the postseason last year.
BEEN AROUND THE BLOCK
Montana State is one of the most experienced teams in the country in 2024-25, boasting five players in the rotation who have each played in at least 114 games (Jabe Mullins, Tyler Patterson, Brian Goracke, Max Agbonkpolo, Sam Lecholat), and nine players who have at least four years in college basketball. Tyler Patterson has started 129 games in a Montana State uniform entering Saturday, the most of any active player at one school in the country and the most in Montana State history.
SNOQUALMIE SPLASH BROS
Jabe Mullins and Tyler Patterson reunite on the 2024-25 Montana State men’s basketball team after playing together growing up in the Seattle area. Patterson and Mullins have been playing together since they were third-graders, and will close out their college careers together in Bozeman this season. The duo led Mount Si to the 2020 WIAA state title, the school’s first state championship since 1977, before Mullins accepted a scholarship as the No. 1 player in the state of Washington to play for Saint Mary’s (2020-22) and then Washington State (2022-24). Patterson committed to Montana State out of high school, where he has played in four Big Sky Tournament Championship games and won three rings for the Bobcats.
GOLDEN AGE OF BOBCAT BASKETBALL
Montana State has played in four straight Big Sky Tournament championship games, gone 49-16 against Big Sky opponents over the last three seasons, and made three straight NCAA Tournament appearances for the first time in school history.
The Bobcats are the Big Sky Conference’s first three-peat champion since Weber State from 1978-80. In 2021-22, Montana State went 27-8, which included a 13-1 record at home and a program-record 16 wins in conference play. In 2022-2023, Montana State went 25-10, collected a 12-1 record at Worthington Arena, and went 15-3 in conference action.
THE MATT LOGIE FILE
Second-year MSU head coach Matt Logie has taken his teams to the NCAA Tournament in 12 of his 13 seasons as a head coach, and is believed to be just the second men’s coach in history to lead teams to the Big Dance at the Division I, Division II, and Division III levels (Tobin Anderson). Logie ranks 13th in NCAA men’s basketball history in career winning percentage (.782) and is eighth among active head coaches. Logie came to Montana State after four seasons at Point Loma (Division II), where his teams rolled up an 82-23 record with three conference championships, and eight seasons at Whitworth (Division III), where his teams went 194-35.
#GoCatsGo
