Montana's season comes to a close without WNIT bid
3/14/2006 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
The University of Montana women's basketball team's season came to an official close Monday night when the Women's National Invitational Tournament (WNIT) announced its 40-team lineup and the Lady Griz were not one of the teams selected. Montana ended its season with an overall record of 21-7, finished second in the Big Sky Conference regular-season standings at 10-4 and lost in the semi-final round of the BSC tournament, 73-66, to Northern Arizona.
Two teams from the league will continue playing this week. The Lumberjacks (22-10), who won the Big Sky tournament title with a 74-59 championship-game victory over Weber State Saturday night at Pocatello, Idaho, earned a No. 14 seed in the 2006 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Championship and will face No. 3 seed and 2005 national champion Baylor (24-6) Saturday, March 18, at Tucson, Ariz., as part of the Albuquerque Regional.
Idaho State (17-12), the Big Sky's regular-season champion, earned a spot in the WNIT and will play at Kansas State (19-10) Friday, March 17.
Four other Montana opponents from the 2005-06 season will continue post-season play as well. Florida State (19-9), who the Lady Griz lost to by 13 points in November, earned a No. 6 seed in the NCAA tournament, while Santa Clara (19-11), Miami (16-12) and Wyoming (20-8) will join ISU in the WNIT. The Lady Griz defeated SCU, 82-77, and the Hurricanes, 83-74, and fell on the road to the Cowgirls, 45-50.
"I think we had a very good year," Montana coach Robin Selvig said Tuesday. "How you feel about a season depends a lot on how you finish, and we would have liked to finish differently, but from the overall standpoint it was 21 wins with the schedule we had and a tough league, so I feel good about that."
The Lady Griz entered the 2005-06 season with a roster dominated by underclassmen. Selvig opened practice with seniors Katie Edwards and Jody McLeod and junior Sara Gale and 12 freshmen and sophomores. The inexperience from this season will turn into an experienced team that returns to the floor next October.
"We're excited about next year," Selvig said. "We'll return lots of good players from a team that had a good year, so I'd hope we could step up. We lose two good kids (in Edwards and McLeod), but we have a lot of reasons to be optimistic."
The Big Sky Conference will feature a different look next year with the addition of Northern Colorado, making the BSC a league of nine teams. That will mean 16 conference games (and two fewer non-league games to schedule), an earlier start to the league schedule (Thursday, Jan. 4) and a full schedule of conference games on two Monday evenings.
"(The changed schedule) won't have a lot of effect on us," Selvig said. "It's two less games to schedule in the non-conference, so in a way it makes scheduling easier. We're still a couple of games short at this point of a complete schedule.
"I don't know much about Northern Colorado, but I know they'll be a competitive team in this league. Nine is not the ideal number of teams for scheduling purposes and it will make for kind of a screwy schedule, but everybody will be in the same boat."
2005-06 Notes
* Team: Reached 20 wins for the 24th time in Selvig's 28 seasons ... .755 free throw percentage was the best in team history ... .351 field goal percentage defense was the sixth best in Montana history and could rank in the top 10 nationally in the year-end statistics ... 164 made 3-pointers tied for third most in Lady Griz history, while 468 attempts ranked third.
* Katie Edwards: Finished with 1,400 points to rank fourth on the UM career scoring list behind Shannon Cate (2,172), Hollie Tyler (1,698) and Lisa McLeod (1,470) ... 236 career threes rank first in Montana and Big Sky Conference history ... On Lady Griz career lists, Edwards ranks first in 3-point field goal attempts (653), third in field goal attempts (1,317), sixth in scoring average (11.8) and made field goals (511), seventh in free throw percentage (.776) and ninth in 3-point field goal percentage (.361) ... With 53 treys in 2005-06, Edwards has four of the top six single-season 3-point performances in Lady Griz history ... .853 free throw percentage in 2005-06 ranks No. 4 in Montana history.
* Mandy Morales: 366 points are the second most by a Montana freshman (Hollie Tyler, 375) ... 15.9 scoring average was the best ever by a Lady Griz freshman ... 124 made free throws and 155 free throw attempts both rank fifth on the Lady Griz single-season list.
*Jody McLeod: 727 career rebounds were two shy of cracking the Montana top 10 list, while .753 career free throw percentage was .002 from making the top 10.
Two teams from the league will continue playing this week. The Lumberjacks (22-10), who won the Big Sky tournament title with a 74-59 championship-game victory over Weber State Saturday night at Pocatello, Idaho, earned a No. 14 seed in the 2006 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Championship and will face No. 3 seed and 2005 national champion Baylor (24-6) Saturday, March 18, at Tucson, Ariz., as part of the Albuquerque Regional.
Idaho State (17-12), the Big Sky's regular-season champion, earned a spot in the WNIT and will play at Kansas State (19-10) Friday, March 17.
Four other Montana opponents from the 2005-06 season will continue post-season play as well. Florida State (19-9), who the Lady Griz lost to by 13 points in November, earned a No. 6 seed in the NCAA tournament, while Santa Clara (19-11), Miami (16-12) and Wyoming (20-8) will join ISU in the WNIT. The Lady Griz defeated SCU, 82-77, and the Hurricanes, 83-74, and fell on the road to the Cowgirls, 45-50.
"I think we had a very good year," Montana coach Robin Selvig said Tuesday. "How you feel about a season depends a lot on how you finish, and we would have liked to finish differently, but from the overall standpoint it was 21 wins with the schedule we had and a tough league, so I feel good about that."
The Lady Griz entered the 2005-06 season with a roster dominated by underclassmen. Selvig opened practice with seniors Katie Edwards and Jody McLeod and junior Sara Gale and 12 freshmen and sophomores. The inexperience from this season will turn into an experienced team that returns to the floor next October.
"We're excited about next year," Selvig said. "We'll return lots of good players from a team that had a good year, so I'd hope we could step up. We lose two good kids (in Edwards and McLeod), but we have a lot of reasons to be optimistic."
The Big Sky Conference will feature a different look next year with the addition of Northern Colorado, making the BSC a league of nine teams. That will mean 16 conference games (and two fewer non-league games to schedule), an earlier start to the league schedule (Thursday, Jan. 4) and a full schedule of conference games on two Monday evenings.
"(The changed schedule) won't have a lot of effect on us," Selvig said. "It's two less games to schedule in the non-conference, so in a way it makes scheduling easier. We're still a couple of games short at this point of a complete schedule.
"I don't know much about Northern Colorado, but I know they'll be a competitive team in this league. Nine is not the ideal number of teams for scheduling purposes and it will make for kind of a screwy schedule, but everybody will be in the same boat."
2005-06 Notes
* Team: Reached 20 wins for the 24th time in Selvig's 28 seasons ... .755 free throw percentage was the best in team history ... .351 field goal percentage defense was the sixth best in Montana history and could rank in the top 10 nationally in the year-end statistics ... 164 made 3-pointers tied for third most in Lady Griz history, while 468 attempts ranked third.
* Katie Edwards: Finished with 1,400 points to rank fourth on the UM career scoring list behind Shannon Cate (2,172), Hollie Tyler (1,698) and Lisa McLeod (1,470) ... 236 career threes rank first in Montana and Big Sky Conference history ... On Lady Griz career lists, Edwards ranks first in 3-point field goal attempts (653), third in field goal attempts (1,317), sixth in scoring average (11.8) and made field goals (511), seventh in free throw percentage (.776) and ninth in 3-point field goal percentage (.361) ... With 53 treys in 2005-06, Edwards has four of the top six single-season 3-point performances in Lady Griz history ... .853 free throw percentage in 2005-06 ranks No. 4 in Montana history.
* Mandy Morales: 366 points are the second most by a Montana freshman (Hollie Tyler, 375) ... 15.9 scoring average was the best ever by a Lady Griz freshman ... 124 made free throws and 155 free throw attempts both rank fifth on the Lady Griz single-season list.
*Jody McLeod: 727 career rebounds were two shy of cracking the Montana top 10 list, while .753 career free throw percentage was .002 from making the top 10.
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