Lady Griz to hold open scrimmage on Tuesday

Tuesday, October 25

Missoula, Mont.

5:30 PM

Montana

Maroon-Silver scrimmage

10/24/2016 1:41:00 PM | Women's Basketball

By: Montana Sports Information

If you are wondering what the Lady Griz basketball team will look like with the Big Sky Conference's best player sidelined for the season and with nine true or redshirt freshmen among the other 14 players, you're not alone. First-year coach Shannon Schweyen shares your curiosity.

Because even though she's been coaching her team since Oct. 6, not even Schweyen knows what to expect when Montana holds its annual Maroon and Silver scrimmage at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday inside Dahlberg Arena. "It's a good question. I'm not sure what we'll see," she said.

Much of what Montana was going to build itself around in Schweyen's first year was going to be senior forward Kayleigh Valley, and with good reason. She led the league in scoring last season and earlier this month was voted the Big Sky Conference preseason MVP.

Even with Valley in the lineup, Montana was going to be young and inexperienced in 2016-17. Forward Alycia Sims is the only other senior, junior forward Mekayla Isaak the only other upperclassman.

Valley was lost for the season when she suffered a knee injury in the team's fourth preseason practice. Without that nucleus around which everything else was going to function this year, the entire team dynamic changed.

Schweyen and her assistant coaches are still trying to determine how to best use the remaining 14 players. Nine of them -- six true freshmen, three redshirt freshmen -- have yet to play in a collegiate game, which is why she has no idea what Tuesday will bring.

"It's been different kids jumping up at different times in our practices and scrimmages," she said. "You expect that a little bit with so many new players, but it's been really sporadic for us. It will be interesting to see if one of them jumps up and has a good scrimmage."

Tuesday's scrimmage comes one week before the team's first of two exhibition games. Montana will host MSU Northern at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 1.

"It gives everyone a chance to be out there in front of a crowd and get rid of the butterflies before our opener," said Schweyen. "Oftentimes you see some kids who haven't shown a lot in practice take it up a notch when they get in front of a crowd."

With Valley out, Sims and Isaak are the team's only two returning starters from last year's 20-win team that finished fifth in the Big Sky, two games out of first, in the last of former coach Robin Selvig's 38 years on the sideline.

Sophomore Sierra Anderson, who can play either of the guard positions, returns after backing up Haley Vining at the point last season.

Sophomore forward Jace Henderson and sophomore guard Maddie Keast are also back, though neither gained much experience last season. Henderson saw limited minutes in just 22 of the team's 31 games. Keast was restricted to playing in only nine games because of injury.

To illustrate how inexperienced this team is, that's the extent of anything that could be termed veteran.

Tuesday's scrimmage, then, will be the continuation for Schweyen of trying to figure out how those five players will best mix with the nine first- or second-year players to form a team that she feels is ready to carry on the Montana tradition.

"It's time we started putting our top seven or eight kids together and getting a look at what they can do," she said.

Putting a starting five together is something that needs to happen at this point in the season, but it also makes for a potentially unbalanced scrimmage, which isn't useful for either side. Such are the issues Schweyen is facing on a daily basis. So much coaching to do, only so much time. Games are approaching.

"We literally could stop them on every possession in practice, because almost everything is new to most of them. They are young and trying to figure things out and learn as they go," Schweyen said.

"I'm just hoping we can be organized and run stuff and function with that second group on Tuesday and get some healthy competition. It's not much fun or a very beneficial scrimmage if you have one group that is killing it and one group that can hardly function."

Redshirt freshman guards McKenzie Johnston and Taylor Goligoski will have major roles this season, as will true freshman guard Madi Schoening, of Sandpoint, Idaho, probably the most game-ready of the six newcomers.

As for everyone else, like freshman guard Gabi Harrington and freshman forwards Nora Klick and Hailey Nicholson, only time, and on-court experiences like Tuesday's scrimmage, will tell.

Montana could probably use another month of practices, but the Lady Griz won't get that luxury. They will play their second exhibition game against a good Carroll team on Nov. 7, host Great Falls in their season opener on Nov. 15, then travel to Iowa's tournament to face (gulp) South Dakota State.

The Jackrabbits, who look like they'll be even better this season than a year ago, were one shot away from making the Sweet 16 at last year's NCAA Tournament.

But that's still weeks away. In the meantime, Schweyen will use every available day, every minute of practice, to get her team ready. For fans who are interested in seeing the starting point of a five-month journey, Tuesday's scrimmage is it.

"Mostly I'm just hoping we can get better from the scrimmage," she said. "It will expose some weaknesses, I'm sure, and show us some things we need to improve on. The way things have been going, those haven't been hard to find. We have a lot of improving to do."