Montana
Northern Colorado
Lady Griz drop second straight, fall to Bears 57-54
1/18/2014 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Jan. 18, 2014
Box Score
For the second straight game Montana was unable to hold a sizeable lead, and the result was a 0-2 road trip to North Dakota and Northern Colorado.
The Lady Griz (9-6, 3-3 BSC) built an 18-5 lead in the opening 10 minutes of its 57-54 loss to the Bears (9-7, 3-4 BSC) Saturday afternoon at Greeley, Colo., but UNC rallied to even the score by halftime.
Northern Colorado shot 50 percent in the second half and built what would become a nine-point lead, then held on as Montana came up empty on three possessions in the final minute while down three.
"It's a shame we wasted that good start," UM coach Robin Selvig said. "We got off to a good start, and then they got after us. They were physical, and we lost composure and started scrambling and got out of sync a little bit."
The loss came two days after dropping a 62-57 decision at North Dakota, a game Montana led by nine in the second half. The two losses drop the Lady Griz from among the league leaders into the mess of the chase group that features five teams with three Big Sky losses.
All are looking up at North Dakota (11-5, 6-1 BSC) and Montana State (10-5, 5-1 BSC), the two league leaders who squared off Saturday afternoon in Grand Forks. The Bobcats won their fifth straight game and handed UND its first Big Sky loss with a 76-65 win.
Montana shot 32 percent in Thursday's loss at North Dakota but showed no effects of that performance in the early going Saturday. The Lady Griz hit their first three shots, including 3-pointers from Torry Hll and Kellie Cole, and a Jordan Sullivan three put Montana up 11-2 before the first media timeout.
Sullivan hit another three, giving her 10 points in the game's opening eight minutes, and Hill added another basket to make it 18-5 at the midway point of the half.
At that point Northern Colorado was 2 for 10 with six turnovers, but the Bears flipped the switch and quickly became a different team.
They were 7 for 13 the rest of the half with three turnovers and held Montana to just three field goals the final 10:30 to even the score at 27-27 by halftime. The Lady Griz had 10 first-half turnovers.
"The second part of the first half, they said, Okay, if you're going to be kicking us, we're going to get after you and hound you and see if you guys can handle it," Selvig said. "We didn't handle it very well and gave away the lead."
Three-pointers by Hill and Cole allowed Montana, which went 10 for 20 from the arc for the game, to get out to an early lead in the second half, but a four-minute scoring drought, coupled with an 8-0 run for Northern Colorado, allowed the Bears to build a lead they would never give back.
The UNC lead would reach nine points, 54-45, at the 4:44 mark. To its credit, Montana would give up just one more basket the rest of the game, and that allowed the Lady Griz to nearly come back.
Haley Vining hit a pair of threes late in the second half to spark the rally, and Sullivan scored six points in the final 4:19. Her two free throws made it 57-54 with 1:32 still to play.
Northern Colorado, with two turnovers and a missed shot, gave Montana all the chances it could want, but Cole dribbled into a double team and turned it over with just over a minute remaining, then missed a three with 17 seconds left.
The Lady Griz forced another turnover, a UNC double dribble right in front of the Bears' bench, and that gave Montana possession with 8.2 seconds left.
After Selvig used a timeout to diagram a play, Vining came off a screen at the top of the key, but with the clock winding down she could not find an open player, and her hurried 3-point shot at the buzzer into double coverage wasn't close.
"For the most part I thought we did a nice job defensively today, and we were able to come back and give ourselves some opportunities," said Selvig, whose team has lost three straight to the Bears in Greeley. "But we didn't shoot the ball particularly well."
Sullivan led Montana with 17 points, Cole had 11 and a team-high five assists, and Kayleigh Valley added a season-high 10 points off the bench while playing a season-high 22 minutes. Carly Selvig had 8 rebounds, 5 blocks, 4 assists and 2 steals, all season highs.
Montana shot 35.8 percent, making it 33.9 percent for the road trip, and was outrebounded by eight in the second half and 35-30 for the game.
Stephanie Lee led Northern Colorado with 15 points. The Bears shot 44.9 percent, the second-highest percentage Montana has allowed this season.
The Lady Griz will open a four-game home stand next week when Montana hosts Idaho State (4-10, 2-3 BSC) and Weber State (4-10, 0-5 BSC) at Dahlberg Arena.
In other Big Sky Conference games Saturday afternoon, Idaho State won at Southern Utah 69-65, Northern Arizona won at Portland State 88-67, and Eastern Washington won at home over Sacramento State 78-65.
Big Sky Conference standings:
North Dakota (6-1 BSC, 11-5)
Montana State (5-1, 10-5)
Eastern Washington (4-3, 8-8)
Sacramento State (3-3, 11-4)
Montana (3-3, 9-6)
Southern Utah (3-3, 9-6)
Portland State (3-4, 5-11)
Northern Colorado (3-4, 9-7)
Idaho State (2-3, 4-10)
Northern Arizona (2-4, 5-10)
Weber State (0-5, 4-10)
