Lady Griz basketball :: Spokane dispatches, Friday edition
3/18/2011 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
March 18, 2011
Seventeen things to get you focused on No. 14 Montana's NCAA tournament game Saturday afternoon against No. 3 UCLA.
1. The McCarthey Center holds 6,000 paying fans, and all 6,000 seats have been sold for Saturday's two-game session.
Gonzaga had been selling all-session (meaning Saturday's two-game session in addition to Monday night's game between Saturday's winners) tickets since October. Those sold out earlier this week after Gonzaga assured itself of playing at home with a championship at the West Coast Conference tournament.
Single-session tickets for Saturday's two games went on sale Wednesday morning and sold out before noon.
Montana was given an allotment of 200 when it probably could have sold 2,000.
2. No. 11 Gonzaga hosts No. 6 Iowa in Saturday's early game. The only thing that could keep all 6,000 fans from sticking around for the second game, which starts at 3:30 p.m. local time, would be the 4:45 p.m. tip between the No. 11 Gonzaga men and their game against No. 3 BYU.
3. Gonzaga could, in theory, play four straight games in Spokane on its way to the Final Four. With wins Saturday and Monday, the Bulldogs would advance to the Spokane Regional, which is being held Saturday and Monday, March 26 and 28, at Spokane's Veterans Memorial Arena.
4. It's a tough draw for Iowa. First of all, Gonzaga is better than a No. 11 seed. Second, the Hawkeyes have to face the Bulldogs on their home court. Still, you would think no matter how it turns out that it will be a much more memorable NCAA tournament trip for Iowa than if the Hawkeyes were facing Gonzaga at a neutral site in front of a crowd one-fifth the size Saturday's will be.
5. Saturday's game will be broadcast on ESPN2 throughout Montana and in other select markets (the UM-UCLA game is one of four women's games in that time slot). Marc Kestecher and Krista Blunk, who covered Montana's game against Pittsburgh in the 2009 tournament, will be on the broadcast.
Watch for a classic Lady Griz team photo from 1978-79, with first-year coach Robin Selvig and sophomore Sandy Selvig, who looks exactly like her daughter Jordan Sullivan, a freshman on this year's team.
6. At the team's traditional practice-before-a-game shooting contests, sophomore Ashley Ferda won the 3-point shooting contest, and the Lady Griz put down two of their half-court attempts. If Montana finds itself down two with three seconds and the length of the court to go in tomorrow's game, look for junior Tianna Ware to be inserted into the lineup for her half-court shooting prowess.
7. The trip from Missoula to Spokane Thursday afternoon had a regular-season feel to it until the team bus pulled up to the Red Lion Hotel and was greeted to a hero's welcome by two dozen hotel staffers decked out in maroon and silver. Pretty sure that doesn't happen on a Wednesday in February when the team comes up for a game against Eastern Washington.
8. Coach Selvig spent a good chunk of Friday's 70-minute practice working on breaking the press and finishing when the opportunity presents itself. That reminds me ...
9. Game key No. 1: Montana is going to get some open looks Saturday, but probably not a whole lot of them. The Lady Griz cannot miss those shots and expect to be hanging around in the second half.
10. Game key No. 2: Montana is playing its best defense of the season and should be able to frustrate UCLA, which is only averaging 65.7 points per game. But the Lady Griz need one-and-done possessions, which means having a game on the defense boards. Nothing wastes 30 seconds of great defense like an easy offensive-rebound putback off a missed shot.
11. Game key No. 3: Montana is going to turn the ball over. All of UCLA's opponents do, which is why the Bruins are allowing a mere 54.5 points per game. But can the Lady Griz keep those turnovers from becoming easy transition baskets for UCLA?
Like Coach Selvig said to the ESPN announcers at Friday's practice: he would rather have a five-second count for a turnover that results in UCLA going against his five set defenders than a panicked turnover that can become transition points and amp up an already tenacious Bruins defense.
12. Game key No. 4: How will Montana's youth show on Saturday? Of Montana's nine healthy rotation players, six (sophomores Katie Baker, Kenzie De Boer, Alexandra Hurley and Alyssa Smith and freshmen Lexie Nelson and Jordan Sullivan) will be playing in their first NCAA tournament game.
A Big Sky Conference championship game on Altitude is one thing. This is another.
13. Montana needs to get its little-engine-that-could mojo back. Since going down to the wire against No. 5 Louisiana Tech in 2004 before losing a memorable first-round game in Missoula, 81-77, the Lady Griz are 0-3 with lopsided losses to Vanderbilt (2005 in Seattle), Vanderbilt again (2008 in Albuquerque) and Pittsburgh (2009 in Seattle) by a combined 80 points.
Montana has won six NCAA tournament games, but they all came between 1984 and 1995.
14. Those who know Gonzaga coach Kelly Graves say he is especially edgy leading up to this weekend's games. He has the No. 11 seed, so in that way it would be an upset it the Bulldogs beat No. 6 Iowa Saturday, but you get the feeling Gonzaga fans believe it would be the other way around. Monday's game against UCLA as well. With a loyal (and growing) fan base - and continued dominance in the West Coast Conference - come those types of expectations.
15. Saturday's color analyst Krista Blunk watched the three preternaturally athletic Schweyen girls running around the facility at Friday afternoon's practice and wondered whose kids they were. When told they were the daughters of former Lady Griz great and current assistant coach Shannon (Cate) Schweyen and her husband Brian, a former all-America high jumper at Montana State, she said, "I wish I could buy stock in their athletic futures."
16. Montana played a great schedule in 2010-11. James Madison and Gonzaga are playing in the NCAA tournament, UC Riverside, Utah State, Florida Gulf Coast, Denver, Wyoming and Portland State made the WNIT, and Idaho, Cal State Bakersfield and Northern Colorado advanced to the Women's Basketball Invitational.
17. The ESPN media timeouts Saturday will have the first horn blowing at the two-minute mark and the second horn blowing 15 seconds later, which is twice as long as the timeouts during the regular season. No wonder coaches often joke about running out of things to say to their teams during timeouts when they get to the NCAA tournament.
