I wonder how many people quit watching last night’s Griz game at halftime.

I thought about it.

It’s hard to come up with adjectives to describe how the Griz played, especially Anthony Johnson, in the  second half of the Big Sky tournament championship game. Somehow words like unbelievable and exhilarating just don’t seem to cut it.

Adjectives for the first half come a little more easily: discouraging, disgusting, embarrassing.

You always have to worry when a team has to come back from such a large deficit that the players have to expend so much energy to catch up that they’ll run out of gas at the end.

But in Montana’s case Wednesday night, they didn’t expend much energy in the first half, and they caught up so quickly in the second that end-of-game energy didn’t seem to be an issue.

It was somewhat ironic that my son and I had talked earlier in the day about Johnson’s ability to score pretty much any time he wants and recognize when he really has to, even though it’s obvious that one of his priorities is to be a team player.

Last night being a team player meant carrying most of the offensive load.

While his performance was almost surreal (his word), what can’t be lost is the contributions other Grizzly players made in other areas.

Derek Selvig capped his progression into a truly outstanding player with a solid game at both ends of the court. Brian Qvale quietly grabbed 14 rebounds and blocked six shots.

Ryan Staudacher played 39 minutes, and while he didn’t score much – but then who did besides Johnson and Selvig – he drew some of Weber’s defensive attention away from Johnson and applied himself at the defensive end.

Will Cherry didn’t score a point and played just 22 minutes because of early foul trouble, but his huge defensive play on Damian Lillard at the end of the game was typical for him.

Besides a lousy first half, the stat sheet shows what else Montana had to overcome:

The Griz had 20 turnovers, the bulk of them in the first half, while Weber State had just 10. The Wildcats went to the free throw line 33 times compared to 17 by Montana.

Fortunately 12 of the Wildcats’ free throws were shot by Franklin Session, who missed seven including two crucial ones at the end of the game.

Three Griz players shot free throws, while eight went to the line for the Wildcats. The Grizzlies wound up 14 for 17, with Johnson making all 14. The Wildcats were 22 for 33, almost enough to make up for making fewer field goals than the Grizzlies.

I’ve watched more Grizzly basketball games over the past 50-plus years than I’d care to admit, but I honestly can’t remember another like Wednesday night’s, especially in terms of the sharp contrast between halves.

The only thing better would be to have been there in person.

- Bill Schwanke