Lady Griz give first glimpse at Thursday scrimmage
10/26/2011 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Oct. 26, 2011
With three returning starters and six returning letterwinners there will be plenty of familiar faces when 34th-year Lady Griz coach Robin Selvig debuts his 2011-12 team for the public Thursday night at the annual Maroon & Silver scrimmage at Dahlberg Arena.
But Montana lost six players off last year's NCAA tournament team and fortified its roster with three incoming freshmen, two walk-ons and a pair of returning redshirts, which will make grabbing a program on the way into the arena a necessity.
The women's game will start at 7:30 p.m., or shortly after the men's scrimmage, which begins at 6 p.m.
Because the team will have 12 healthy players, or two teams of six, the women's scrimmage will likely be two 16-minute halves.
Unlike the men, who are less than two weeks into their season, the Lady Griz have been practicing since Monday, Oct. 3. They'll have had 17 practices/scrimmages leading up to Thursday's game, so the more game-like the atmosphere, the better.
"We've been practicing and scrimmaging for a while now, so I think the players are tired of playing against themselves," Selvig said. "I like the new rule that gets us starting earlier, but we've been beating on each other a long time.
"This is still a scrimmage, but with people (in attendance) it has a game-like feel, so it's something to get ready for, and it's more fun."
The six faces you'll definitely recognize will be the three returning starters - juniors Katie Baker, Kenzie De Boer and Alyssa Smith - and returning letterwinners junior Ali Hurley and sophomores Torry Hill and Jordan Sullivan.
You'll also recognize senior Tianna Ware and possibly redshirt freshmen Kellie Cole and Carly Selvig, who played in last year's scrimmage, then spent the season cheering on their teammates at home games from the end of the bench.
Beyond that you'll definitely need your program.
Donning the hallowed No. 3, not worn since the heady days of Mandy Morales, will be freshman Haley Vining (VINE-ing), a guard from Great Falls.
Lady Griz fans of a certain age will recall her mom, Marti (Kinzler) Vining, a two-time All-Big Sky Conference selection for the Lady Griz who played for Selvig from 1986-87 to 1990-91.
Wearing No. 20 is Hannah Doran, a freshman guard from Corvallis, Ore. Not to make you feel old, but she was 11 years old when she visited Dahlberg Arena in March 2004 and watched the Lady Griz and her one-time neighbor, Brooklynn Lorenzen, take on Louisiana Tech in an NCAA tournament game.
Maggie Rickman, a freshman forward out of Helena, will be wearing No. 32. She is on Selvig's (Robin, not Carly) short list of The Biggest Surprises of the First Month.
With just 12 scholarship players this season (of the 15 allowed), Selvig brought on a pair of walk-ons to help with practice numbers. One will play Thursday night, one won't.
Nycole Devers, a sophomore guard from Belgrade, will be wearing No. 30. Thursday will be her Lady Griz debut, but she has already competed on a very large stage in her collegiate career.
A javelin thrower on the Griz track and field team, Devers (sounds like "nevers," if that was a word) qualified for NCAA regionals last spring as a redshirt freshman and competed at Oregon's Hayward Field, which is the basketball equivalent of playing at Phog Allen Fieldhouse, The Palestra or Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Lexie Anderson, a 5-8 freshman guard out of Missoula and Loyola Sacred Heart High, is the team's other walk-on. She will not be playing Thursday due to a medical issue.
Pregame notes to make you a more informed Lady Griz fan:
1. De Boer will not be playing Thursday. Her absence and Anderson's absence gives Selvig 12 players to use. De Boer has been off and on at practice all month as she, the trainers and doctors figure out how to heal her so that she is 100 percent ready for the season opener on Nov. 11.
Selvig would rather be without her now than at any time during the regular season. By the way, if De Boer's offense ever catches up to her defense - where she is a menace at the top of Montana's zone - she could be the Big Sky Conference MVP.
2. Another item on Selvig's short list of The Biggest Surprises of the First Month is the backcourt play of Kellie Cole. "Kellie has really caught our attention. She's playing really well at the one and two."
During her redshirt season last winter, Cole practiced mostly at the two and three.
3. And that's good because Haley Vining - the team's point guard of the future - is still returning to form. She tore her ACL playing her senior season of soccer last October and missed her final prep year of basketball. She went down with a scary knee injury at practice two weeks ago, but it was minor and she missed just a handful of practices.
"Haley hadn't played basketball for essentially a year (when we started practicing earlier this month), so she's been coming along and making good progress," Selvig said. "She had a ways to go to get her speed and quickness back, but she's been making good strides.
"We're thankful she only missed four or five days (with her recent injury). If you miss more than that as a freshman point guard, it can really set you back."
4. Torry Hill is back and healthy and will soon have you forgetting that they moved the women's 3-point line back a foot, from 19-feet, 9 inches to 20-feet, 9 inches. She knocked down 39 threes last year but should be taking up membership in the Sonya Rogers Downtown Club this season. Sixty gets you in the door, 70 gets you VIP treatment. Break her program record of 72, and you're out of the club.
5. Alexandra Hurley will be listed as such on your program, but she would prefer if you call her Ali.
6. If you were making a depth chart like they use in football to keep everyone straight, you would see Alyssa Smith and Ali Hurley listed as the two-deep for the three, though not necessarily in that order. Hurley can also play the four or the two. De Boer can also play the three.
7. Hannah Doran is getting spread thin. The team's numbers and injuries have had Doran playing at the one, two and three, which Selvig is not exactly pleased about, for Doran's sake.
"It's hasn't really been fair to her, because that's hard as a freshman. We've had kids out, so we've been making it work, and that's meant Hannah's been playing all three spots," he said.
"A lot of things are different, so those are hard to learn. There is too much going on. When I can zero her in on the two or the three and quit having her play everything, she'll be better for it."
8. You are going to like the four-player interior rotation, a lot, with Katie Baker and Jordan Sullivan returning, and Carly Selvig and Maggie Rickman joining them.
Baker was a first-team All-Big Sky Conference selection as a sophomore and is a better shooting percentage away from being a consistent 15-points, eight-rebounds per game performer.
Sullivan averaged 4.5 points and 4.1 rebounds last season. The former should double this season, the latter increase by a couple to give her Sarah-Ena-as-a-senior type numbers (but without Ena's team-high 88 personal fouls).
Rickman "has really impressed us," (Robin) Selvig said, and his niece, Carly, is going to provide a new defensive presence in the middle. Plus she can score it. She poured in 20 at the team's last scrimmage, going 3 for 3 from 3-point range.
"Carly is playing well and getting better all the time," the elder Selvig said. "She's our longest defender, and she has good feet and good defensive instincts. And she is a good passer for a freshman big kid."
It's those four who are most ready for a break from the usual.
"Those are the kids who are getting tired of pounding on each other," Selvig said. "They've really been going at it every day because they all play so hard."
9. Montana will play exhibition games against Lewis-Clark State on Wednesday, Nov. 2, and MSU Northern on Monday, Nov. 7. LCSC went 29-5 last season, won the Frontier Conference tournament and made it to the second round of the NAIA national tournament. MSUN went 13-18 and features Juliann Keller (Lady Griz, 2001-05) as an assistant coach.
10. Montana opens its regular season two weeks from Friday against Samford in Chicago at DePaul's Maggie Dixon Classic.
