Lady Griz seeking title at home this week
3/2/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
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The University of Montana women???s basketball team will play its final two regular season games at home this week when it hosts Eastern Washington and Portland State. The Lady Griz (24-4, 13-1 BSC) will face the Eagles (10-17, 5-9 BSC) Thursday at 7 p.m. and the Vikings (20-7, 13-1 BSC) Saturday at 2 p.m. Both games are at Dahlberg Arena.
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Portland State plays at Montana State (13-13, 7-7 BSC) Thursday night at 7 p.m.
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What???s at Stake: Montana and Portland State are currently tied atop the Big Sky Conference standings at 13-1. UM???s lone Big Sky loss was at PSU, 72-62, on Jan. 29. It was the Lady Griz??? only loss in their last 17 games.
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The Vikings??? lone Big Sky loss was at home to Montana State, 94-90 in overtime on Jan. 31, two days after Portland State topped Montana.
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Neither team has lost since the last weekend of January.
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The regular season champion will earn hosting rights to the Big Sky Conference tournament.
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Eastern Washington, which plays at Montana State Saturday night, is one of four teams attempting to grab one of the final two tournament spots. The Eagles have to win at least one game on their road trip this weekend to have a chance at advancing to the post-season.
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The last time out: Montana, Portland State and Eastern Washington are all coming off single-game weeks. The Lady Griz defeated Northern Colorado at home last Thursday, 71-51; the Vikings topped the Eagles Saturday afternoon in Portland, 72-60.
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Tournament talk: Montana and Portland State will be the top two seeds at the 2009 Big Sky Conference tournament, which will be held in either Missoula or Portland Thursday through Saturday, March 12-14. With one weekend to play, Montana State and Idaho State (10-18, 7-8 BSC) have also secured bids.
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Sacramento State (8-20, 6-9 BSC), Northern Colorado (12-16, 5-9 BSC), Eastern Washington and Northern Arizona (8-20, 5-10 BSC) are all fighting for the final two tournament spots.
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Only Weber State (9-19, 4-11 BSC) has been eliminated from post-season consideration at this point.
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This week in the Big Sky:
Thursday: Eastern Washington at Montana, Portland State at Montana State, Northern Colorado at Northern Arizona
Friday: Idaho State at Weber State
Saturday: Portland State at Montana, Eastern Washington at Montana State, Northern Colorado at Sacramento State
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Senior Day: Saturday afternoon???s game will also double as Senior Day. Tamara Guardipee, Britney Lohman, Mandy Morales and Sonya Rogers will all be playing in their final (regular-season) home game.
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The quartet has gone 97-22 over the last three-plus seasons, won two regular-season conference championships and been to one NCAA tournament and one WNIT.
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From Coach Selvig: ???Heading into the year, you want to have a chance to win your league going into the final weekend, and we have that. After losing (at Portland State), we???ve done what we had to do to control our own destiny. But so has Portland State.
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???You???d rather have these final games at home, but that doesn???t guarantee anything.
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???Eastern is a big game for us because they are a scary team that has some big wins and is playing to get into the tournament. We played one of our better games of the year at Eastern (when we won 81-56). We shot the heck out of the ball and defended well. It was a good bounce-back win after the loss at Portland State (two days earlier).
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???Portland State is a very good team that went out and beat us in our first meeting, but I think that game honed us in on some things we weren???t doing very well defensively. I think we???ve made some strides and improved defensively since that game. They are the type of team you need to have your best game against if you want a chance to win.???
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Home and away: Montana is 13-1 at home this season, a perfect 6-0 in Big Sky games, and 45-2 at Dahlberg Arena dating back to the start of the 2006-07 season.
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Eastern Washington is 2-10 in road games this season, 1-5 in Big Sky play. The Eagles??? lone road victory was an 82-68 victory at Weber State in early January.
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Portland State is 9-5 on the road this season, a perfect 6-0 in league games. The Vikings have won all their league road games by at least nine points.
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Loss leaders: Montana has lost four games this season. All four of those opponents are atop their conference standings. Maryland (25-4 overall) is tied with Florida State atop the Atlantic Coast Conference, South Dakota State (27-2) and Gonzaga (24-6) are alone atop the Summit League and West Coast Conference and Portland State is tied for the league lead in the Big Sky.
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Rogers moves into 10th: With her 12-point game in Montana???s victory over Northern Colorado last Thursday, Sonya Rogers moved into 10th on the Lady Griz career scoring list with 1,254 points. She passed Doris Deden, who previously held the No. 10 spot with 1,248 points.
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Rogers scored 133 points (4.8/g) as a freshman, 341 (11.0/g) as a sophomore, 396 as a junior (12.4/g) and has 384 (13.7/g) this season. Rogers has a career average of 10.5 points per game.
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Getting defensive about it: In its last five games, Montana has held its opponents to an average of 47.4 points per game on 31.1 percent shooting. During that stretch, the Lady Griz are averaging 74.0 points per game on 46.6 percent shooting.
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Among the nation???s best: Montana ranks third nationally (through Sunday???s games) in field goal percentage defense, putting the Lady Griz with some impressive company: Xavier (25-5) leads the nation at 32.6 percent, while Connecticut (29-0) ranks second at 33.2 percent.
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Montana also ranks in the top 20 in scoring margin (11th, 15.7 ppg), turnovers (13th, 14.0/g) and assist-to-turnover ratio (15th, 1.02).
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More on Eastern Washington: The Eagles were 4-3 in Big Sky play after topping Montana State on Jan. 29 but have since lost six of seven to take a precarious spot on the tournament bubble.
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Sophomore forward Julie Piper (10.7/g), junior forward Nicole Scott (10.3/g) and sophomore guard Kyla Evans (10.1/g) all average in double figures. Piper leads the team at 7.0 rebounds per game.
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History: Montana leads the all-time series 63-11 and has won the last six meetings. The Lady Griz have a 36-2 edge at home, with 25 straight wins. The Eagles haven???t won in Missoula since the 1986-87 season.
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The first meeting: Montana shot 66.7 percent in the second half and 54.7 percent for the game to pull away from a five-point halftime lead to an 81-56 victory at Cheney, Wash., Jan. 31. Mandy Morales and Sonya Rogers combined to hit 17 of 25 shots, seven of 10 of which were threes, and score 28 and 17 points, respectively.
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Julie Piper had 10 points to lead the Eagles.
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More on Portland State: The Vikings have won six straight games and nine of 10, with only the overtime loss to Montana State in late January blemishing their record.
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PSU is averaging a Big Sky-best 76.4 points per game on 45.3 percent shooting during league play. Montana has the league???s best defense during league play, allowing 55.9 points per game on 34.5 percent shooting.
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Senior forward Kelsey Kahle averages 17.1 points and 6.1 rebounds per game, both team highs, on 52.9 percent shooting. Sophomore forward Kelli Valentine (11.5/g) and junior guard Claire Faucher (10.4/g) also average in double figures. Faucher leads the Big Sky at 6.70 assists per game.
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History: Montana leads the all-time series 35-10, but the Vikings have won two of the last three meetings. The Lady Griz have a 19-2 advantage at home. PSU hasn???t won in Missoula since the 1998-99 season, a streak of 10 games.
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The first meeting: In Portland State???s 72-62 win in Portland Jan. 29, the Vikings allowed Mandy Morales to score a season-high 34 points but held everyone else to six points or fewer. The Lady Griz turned the ball over 20 times and struggled to a 1-for-14 (.071) performance from 3-point range.
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Katia Hadj-Hamou hit four threes and scored a team-high 19 points to lead PSU.
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Notes: Sonya Rogers will be playing in her 120th career game Thursday night. The program record for games played is 124. ... Rogers is 17-for-26 (.654) from 3-point range over Montana???s last four games. ... Sarah Ena had her second career double-double against Northern Colorado with 10 points and 11 rebounds. ... UM???s next win will give the program 25 or more wins for the third straight season. It will be Montana???s 15th 25-win team in coach Robin Selvig???s 31 seasons.
