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March’s First Star: Montana’s Anthony Johnson

Mar 11, 2010, 4:25 PM UTC

Maybe you spent Wednesday night watching the Big East tournament. Maybe you watched Modern Family on ABC. Whatever the case, there’s a good chance you missed the Big Sky championship. The game, which was played at Weber State, was a relatively uninteresting game for the first 20 minutes, so even if you tuned in, you probably left before it was over. (And rightfully so, because Weber State led 40-20 at halftime.) But if you didn’t stick with the game, you missed Montana’s Anthony Johnson put on the month’s first big-time performance. Johnson scored 34 of his 42 points in the second half and Montana rallied to make the NCAA Tournament with a 66-65 win. Check out his box score line for the second half:â†µâ†µâ‡¥23 JOHNSON, Anthony.... FG: 11-14 3-PT: 2-3 FT: 10-10 PTS: 34â†µâ†µâ†µThat game alone would’ve made Johnson the subject of a few CBS features before Montana’s first-round game, which probably will be in that No. 14 seed range. But what pushes it to the next level is Johnson’s backstory of how he and his wife wound up at Montana.â†µ

â†µâ†µBoth Anthony and his wife, Shaunte Nance-Johnson, were at dead ends in their respective hoops careers, but after Shaunte quit at Northwest Nazarene University, a coach from Yakima Valley Community College called her up to see if she would play. The rest is history:â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥Nance jumped at the opportunity, but she had one condition. If she was going to play for YVCC, she wanted Johnson to have a chance to make the men’s team. The coaches agreed, and all of a sudden, the opportunity that Johnson needed to show off his stuff, the one he never really had in high school, was there for him.â†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥“She kind of gave me an opportunity there to ride her coattails into the door,” Johnson said.â†µâ‡¥

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That turned out to be a good thing for YVCC, because Johnson went on to average 24.4 points per game. From there, Anthony was able to return the favor for Shaunte. When he landed at Montana, he was able to help pave the way for her on the women’s squad. She’s a backup point guard for the school. Shaunte plays in the Big Sky semifinals on Friday. What a story it would be if she could join him in the NCAA Tournament. Watch a local news report on the first family of Montana hoops below:â†µ
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