Montgomery takes home Frontier Conference Defensive honors

HELENA, Mont. -- Bellevue University senior JJ Montgomery (Hayward, Calif.) has been named the Frontier Conference's Defensive Player of the Week after his performance in leading the Bruins to a pair of quality conference wins over the University of Montana Western and Montana Technological University.

Montgomery, a 5-11 guard, drew a pair of crucial defensive assignments over the weekend where he was tasked with guarding Montana Western's Kyle Gruhler and Montana Tech's Brayden Koch, both of whom are their team's leading scorers.

Against UMW, Montgomery held Gruhler – the leading scorer in the Frontier Conference – eight points below his season average. He found himself in Gruhler's pocket all night, allowing the 6-5 sharp-shooter to get off just six field goal attempts in the Bruins' 80-67 victory. Gruhler was limited to just 2-4 from long-range after entering the game averaging 4.0 made threes per game on 54% shooting.

One night later, against #15 Montana Tech, Montgomery was tasked with guarding Koch, the Orediggers' 6-3 guard who came in averaging nearly 16 points per game. He limited Koch to 10 points as BU picked up their second top 25 victory in the last two weeks.

Montgomery averaged 7.5 points and 3.0 rebounds per game last week while totaling six assists and two steals. He connected on 50% of his field goal attempts, went 3-for-6 from deep, and sank both of his free throw attempts.

Bellevue travels to Madison, S.D. on Friday, Jan. 23 for a 7 p.m. tip against Dakota State University.