E. Washington vaults Montana 78-50 into Big Sky final

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Jacob Groves scored a career-high 21 points as Eastern Washington routed Montana 78-50 in the semifinals of the Big Sky Conference Tournament on Friday night.

The second-seeded Eagles will meet No. 5 seed Montana State in Saturday's championship game. Montana State tripped up top-seeded Southern Utah in Friday's other semifinal.

Groves hit 10 of 13 shots in 27 minutes. Tanner Groves added 18 points for Eastern Washington (15-7). Kim Aiken Jr. added 8 points and 10 rebounds. The Eagles shot 56% for the game (31 of 55) and outrebounded the Grizzlies 40-25.

Eastern Washington dominated the first half and led 44-15 at halftime, holding Montana to a season-low 15 points on 6-for-28 shooting.

Cameron Parker had 15 points for the Grizzlies (15-13). Josh Bannan added 10 rebounds.

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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights, http://www.automatedinsights.com/ap, using data from STATS LLC, https://www.stats.com