Selvig wins 19th coach of the year award
3/19/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
University of Montana women???s basketball coach Robin Selvig has been named the 2009 Big Sky Conference Coach of the Year the league office announced Thursday. The award is based on voting by the Big Sky???s coaches.
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The coach of the year honor is Selvig???s 19th in his 31 seasons with the Lady Griz.
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Selvig, who has a career record of 725-203, won his first coach of the year award in 1981-82 when Montana was competing in the Northwest Women???s Basketball League. He won five while the Lady Griz competed in the Mountain West Conference. This is his 13th Big Sky coach of the year award.
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Under Selvig???s leadership Montana went 26-4 through the regular season and won its 22nd regular-season conference championship with a 15-1 mark in the Big Sky Conference.
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The Lady Griz matched their program record of 28 wins when they downed Idaho State and Portland State last weekend to win the Big Sky tournament and earn the league???s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
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In November Selvig won his 700th career game with a 59-57 overtime victory over Illinois at the Caribbean Challenge in Cancun, Mexico.
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By winning his 700th game in just 899 games coached, Selvig matched former Texas coach Jody Conradt as the fifth fastest coach in NCAA men???s or women???s Division I history to reach 700 victories.
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Montana went 11-3 through its nonconference schedule, dropping games to three teams playing in this weekend???s opening-round of the 2009 NCAA Women???s Basketball Championship: Maryland, South Dakota State and Gonzaga.
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The Lady Griz lost an early-season Big Sky game at Portland State, 72-62, and haven???t lost since.
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Montana and Portland State, both 14-1 in Big Sky play at the time, met in both teams??? regular-season finale two weekends ago in Missoula. In front of a crowd of over 6,700, the Lady Griz won 70-60 to win the outright Big Sky title and gain tournament hosting rights.
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Senior Mandy Morales was named the Big Sky Conference MVP for the second time in her career and earned unanimous first team All-Big Sky honors for the fourth time. Senior Sonya Rogers was named first team All-Big Sky, senior Britney Lohman second team and sophomore Sarah Ena honorable mention.
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Montana earned a No. 13 seed at this year???s NCAA tournament, the program???s 18th NCAA appearance under Selvig, and will put its 28-4 record up against No. 4 Pittsburgh (23-7) Saturday night in Seattle, Wash.
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The Lady Griz have won 11 straight games entering their game against the Panthers and 20 of their last 21.
