Maybe the non-league schedule is tougher than everyone thought.

After the Oregon men's basketball team dropped its first game of the year at Portland 88-81 Saturday, the Ducks came home only to lose again. This time it was to Montana 68-55.

Oregon was without the services of Michael Dunigan and Joevan Catron due to injuries. Tajuan Porter started the game, but tweaked his ankle early in the game and wasn't a factor in the Oregon offense, or the lack of it.

"I feel like we're a team that's out of rhythm," Coach Ernie Kent said. "Offensively, we were really stagnant tonight."

Anthony Johnson led the Grizzlies with 20 points. Brian Qvale added 15 and Reason Young chipped in 12 for the 4-1 Montana team. Oregon fell to 3-2.

The Ducks jumped out to a 9-2 lead in the early going on LeKendric Longmire's jump shot. Ryan Staudacher gave the Grizzlies their first lead with a three-pointer to put Montana up 19-17. Garrett Sim answered with a three of his own, but Mathias Ward put back lay-up that gave the Grizzlies a 21-20 lead with 3:19 left in the first half and the visitors would never relinquish the lead.

"Montana did a good job in the game," Kent said. "I thought their size bothered us at times. We were out of rotation because we were missing those big guys (Dunigan and Catron)."

The Grizzlies played a 2-3 zone for much of the game and that particular tactic held the Oregon offense in check. Montana took a 30-20 lead at halftime.

But Oregon was able to crawl back into the game briefly in the second half going on a 6-0 run to cut the deficit to 39-36 with 11:12 remaining. But Montana found buckets breaking Oregon's press going on a 12-2 run to take a commanding 51-38 lead with 3:18 left.

"I thought we started out sluggish in the first half," Teondre Williams said. "We picked it up some in the second half, but it was a case of too little, too late."

Williams led the Ducks with 16 points and Sim added 11. But those were the only Ducks to reach double figures.

Oregon also missed a lot of chip shots on the inside. The Ducks was only 18-for-54 from the field, a 33 percent clip. Meanwhile, Montana was hitting big shots to prevent a serious run by the Ducks. The Grizzlies shot 51.2 percent on 21-for-41 from the field.

"That team is a grind out team," Williams said. "They played all 35 seconds of the shot clock."

Oregon will have a full five days to practice and Kent is hopeful that he'll get his three stars back in time to play Montana State Saturday at home. The Bobcats are 1-2 with their lone win coming to Colorado Christian. They lost to Nevada (75-61) and Southern Mississippi (66-62). They will travel to play San Francisco before meeting the Ducks. The opening tip is set for 7:30 pm.

Montana        30  38  -- 68

Oregon          20  35  -- 55

Attendance: 7,095