Lady Griz host Bulldogs Monday night
12/16/2011 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Dec. 16, 2011
The Montana women's basketball team will try to snap a three-game losing streak when it hosts Montana-Western Monday. The Lady Griz and Bulldogs will tip off at 7 p.m. at Dahlberg Arena.
The game is Montana's final contest before the Christmas break and the Lady Griz Holiday Classic, which is scheduled for Dec. 29-30.
Where they stand: Montana is 4-6 and has dropped its last three games to Denver, CSU Bakersfield and Gonzaga. The Lady Griz averaged 54 points on 31.1 percent shooting in the three losses.
Montana-Western is 9-2. The Bulldogs, who only have losses to MSU Billings and Jamestown this season, won at the College of Idaho, 60-56, in their most recent outing Dec. 10.
A deeper look: Three straight losses are three straight losses, but two of those can be spun positively. Denver is 8-3 and whipped Oregon, 89-65, and Minnesota, 72-63, in its last two games. Montana held the Pioneers to 53 points and had the ball down one when the final buzzer sounded.
And Gonzaga is ranked No. 25 in this week's ESPN/USA Today Coaches' Poll.
Montana-Western has just two losses on its record but also has three exhibition losses, including two by wide margins to Big Sky Conference opponents. The Bulldogs lost at Idaho State, 100-61, on Nov. 5, and at Montana State, 83-50, on Nov. 17.
Tracking the action: Video, audio and live stats options are available for Monday night's game. ... Free video will be streamed through Big Sky TV, with Shaun Radley and Krista Pyron on the broadcast. ... Tom Stage and Dick Slater will call the action on KENR 107.5 FM in the Missoula area. ... Live stats will be available through GoGriz.com.
Familiar names and faces: The Montana-Western roster has nine athletes from the state of Montana. Junior forward Brittney Leibenguth, who has played in all 11 games in a reserve roll off the bench, is a graduate of Big Sky High, where she played for her aunt, Marti Leibenguth, the No. 6 scorer in Lady Griz history (1,360 points).
Freshman guard McCall Hasquet, who is redshirting this season, is a graduate of Sentinel High. She is the daughter of Doris Deden-Hasquet, who ranks 11th in Lady Griz scoring history (1,248 points), and the sister of Jordan Hasquet, who scored 1,396 points for the Grizzlies from 2006-09.
And third-year UMW coach Cara Cocchiarella is a former Lady Griz walk-on who later coached Loyola Sacred Heart High to the 2006 Class B state title.
The long break(s): Montana will have gone eight days between games when the Lady Griz host Montana-Western Monday. Montana will then have another 10-day break for Christmas before hosting Southern Mississippi on Thursday, Dec. 29, on the opening night of the Lady Griz Holiday Classic.
Today (Friday) was the last day of finals for the fall semester.
"I'm glad we had an extended break this week because of finals," said UM coach Robin Selvig, who gave his team Monday and Wednesday off with short practices Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
"The ladies got pretty worn out from studying and burning the candle late and from all the games we played (in the two weeks leading up to finals).
"One of the great euphorias in a person's life is being done with finals, so we should have a couple of good workouts Saturday and Sunday leading up to Monday's game."
Getting overshadowed: Montana is shooting 35.2 percent for the season and averaging 58.8 points per game, numbers that are heavily responsible for the team's 4-6 record, but other areas of Montana's game remain strong and point to a breakthrough once the team's shooting warms up.
The Lady Griz are allowing 58.9 points per game, best in the Big Sky Conference, on .378 shooting, third best in the league, which is why four of the team's six losses have been by nine points or fewer.
And Montana has turned the ball over 41 fewer times than its opponents and has a +1.8 per-game rebounding advantage.
But until the Lady Griz start shooting in the 40-plus percent range and posting scoring totals that begin with the number six or even seven, expect more of the same as the season turns the calendar on 2011.
"I know we can shoot better than we're shooting, and I'm confident we will. If not, then we're going to have to hold teams to 30," Selvig said, only partly in jest.
"Shooting and making baskets is a big part of the game and something that's easy to highlight, but it's not like we're a team that can't win games or play with good people.
"We've been in every game, and we've played a good schedule. We're not very far from getting over the hump."
De Boer is killing it: Junior guard Kenzie De Boer has shooting percentages right in line with the rest of the team, 16.1 from 3-point range, 35.7 percent overall, but she is making her presence felt in every other area.
The last two games she has grabbed 20 rebounds and gotten to the line 17 times. Nearly half her scoring in those two games came from the free throw line.
The last three games she has picked off 15 steals, with six at Denver and six more at Gonzaga. That gave her 25 for the season, third most in the Big Sky Conference.
"Kenzie has been playing great," Selvig said. "Like everyone else she is not shooting a great percentage, but she's playing incredibly hard.
"She's creating offense by getting to the line, and she's doing great things on the defensive end."
More on Montana-Western: The Bulldogs have won seven of their first nine games because of defense and rebounding. UMW is holding its opponents to 34.9 percent shooting and is grabbing nearly nine more rebounds per game. ... Montana-Western has three players averaging in double figures: sophomore guard Sammi Bignell (15.3/g), junior center Hayley Pettit (14.2/g) and senior guard Nicole Tams (10.6/g). ... The trio is shooting better than 46 percent on the season. ... Pettit is leading the team in rebounding at 10.9 boards per game. ... Bignell scored 20 points in the team's loss at Montana State. ... Idaho State out-rebounded UMW, 45-22. The Bulldogs out-rebounded the Bobcats 46-35.
The last meeting: Montana picked up its first win of the 2010-11 season with a 91-45 win over Western last Nov. 17. The Lady Griz forced a ridiculous 40 turnovers to more than double up the Bulldogs.
Katie Baker led both teams with 13 points.
Montana notes: In the Big Sky Conference statistics, Katie Baker ranks second in blocks (2.0/g), Torry Hill ranks third in assist-to-turnover ratio (1.5) and fifth in assists (3.7/g), and Kenzie De Boer ranks sixth in free throw percentage (.811). ... Only Northern Colorado, at 57.7 points, is averaging fewer points per game than Montana, and the Lady Griz' .161 3-point field goal percentage is the only league percentage currently less than 25 percent. ... With 43 points the last three games, De Boer has raised her season scoring average to 10.5 to join Baker (13.5/g) in double figures. ... Baker (.439) and Maggie Rickman (.421) are the only two Montana players shooting better than 40 percent for the season. ... Carly Selvig has 18 rebounds the last three games, more than she grabbed the season's first seven games. ... Ali Hurley has missed the last three games due to a concussion suffered on the Wyoming-Denver trip.
