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Familiar foe: Michigan, Montana meet again in NCAA Tournament first round

Posted at 7:47 PM, Mar 20, 2019
and last updated 2019-03-20 19:47:54-04

(AP) -- No. 15 seed Montana (26-8) has the full attention of Michigan coach John Beilein. The teams are meeting in the first round for the second straight year.

Michigan (28-6) won 61-47 in 2018, but the game was not without some drama.

"I hope it doesn't go the way it did last year," he said. "They were ahead of us 10-0 to the start the game, and they have a lot of guys back. We are a little brand new to playing in this type of game. They know Montana is even better than they were last year."

The Grizzlies, who won the Big Sky regular-season title and tournament, are 15-point underdogs.

"We've had a few games where the bull's eye wasn't on our backs, and those were the ones that our guys performed best at, whether we were on the road or we found ourselves in second or third in the standings and we were trying to get back to the top," Montana coach Travis DeCuire said. "We played with a high level of desperation. I think for a rematch our guys will go into the game the same way."