Kayleigh Valley is ready for her swan song

2016-17 Lady Griz Prospectus

"I can't." That was Kayleigh Valley's simple sentiment when asked if she can believe her senior season, which starts Thursday when the Lady Griz take the floor inside Dahlberg Arena at 6 a.m., is here already.

"It's crazy. It feels like yesterday that I came in with Torry (Hill) and Jordy (Sullivan) as the seniors, and having to learn all the plays and getting acclimated with the speed and the size. Now I'm on the other end of things."

A similar lament could be made by Montana fans who watched as Valley had one of the best seasons in Lady Griz history last winter. It's hard for anyone to believe that this will be it for Valley, or want to, because if this winter matches last season, everyone is once again in for something special.

Valley piled up 678 points as a junior as Montana went 20-11 and finished fifth in the Big Sky Conference, two games out of first, at 12-6. That fifth-place finish was the only reason Valley wasn't the runaway winner of league MVP honors.

Her scoring total, an average of 21.9 per game, broke the program single-season scoring record of 668 points and went down as the third-highest single-season total in Big Sky history. It was a huge jump for a player who scored 528 points through her first two seasons.

"As you evolve as a player from beginning to end, you get more confident in your abilities," says Valley, one of three unanimous first-team All-Big Sky selections last season and the likely preseason MVP when that and the coaches' poll are announced on Oct. 18.

"The big thing is knowing your role. Those first two years, my role wasn't to be a scorer. I had lots of talent ahead of me. As I went into last year, I knew I had to step into that role, in both leadership and scoring."

It's hard to imagine now, after Valley scored 15 or more points the final 26 games of the season, but she was held to just two in Montana's early-season home win over Pacific. One basket made, no free throws attempted.

She scored 11 points in game five, a lopsided loss at Lehigh, but then settled into a purple patch, where she remained for three and a half months, through Montana's season-ending loss to North Dakota in the quarterfinals of the Big Sky tournament in Reno.

Valley had 21 games of 20 or more points, eight times scoring 29 or more. The most impressive part? Watching a Lady Griz game last season, a person hardly would have known Valley was on record scoring pace. But that's what happens when a player's efficiency rating is through the roof.

Valley shot 50.2 percent and got to the line a Big Sky-record 231 times, where she hit 84.4 percent. She took 93 fewer shots than Hayley Hodgins, the Eastern Washington guard who ranked second in the league in scoring.

McCalle Feller, with a shooting range out to the midcourt line, may have drawn more oohs and aahs, but it was Valley's John Henry, get-to-work approach that was always there, game in and game out, without exception from December through March.

Valley credits both her teammates for opening things up for her -- leave Feller spotted up and unguarded at your peril -- and her coaches for putting her in position to score. As the season went along, Valley took up more and more of an opponent's scouting report, and she kept producing at record pace.

"Kayleigh obviously had a big target on her back all year. Everybody was trying to stop her. She was a nightmare for people to guard. She was a beast down around the basket," says her new head coach, who throws in a coda that should be heeded by every team preparing for Montana this winter.

"She's added a lot of things to her arsenal in terms of what she can do and how difficult she can be to defend."

Valley isn't a numbers girl. Consider her more of a letter girl, as in W, so she has no use for the following: Another big scoring season would move her into the top three in program history in career points, behind only Shannon Cate and Mandy Morales.

"I try not to worry about that kind of stuff. The more you think about it, you end up hurting yourself," says Valley, who is one of three returning starters on this year's team, along with Alycia Sims and Mekayla Isaak.

"It will balance itself out. Other players are going to have outstanding nights, so it's not like Alycia and I have to be the dominant people every game. People are going to target us, so that's going to provide opportunities for everyone else to succeed."

It's the "everyone else" that offers the most intrigue for the coming season, since eight of the 14 players who take the court Thursday morning have not played a collegiate game. And the other three not named Valley, Sims or Isaak have just one season of experience and 62 games played between them.

Of course that's not the only intrigue associated with the coming season. It already feels like it was in the distant past, but it was less than three months ago that after 38 years of patrolling the Lady Griz sideline, Robin Selvig took his 865 wins and called it a career.

"He put in a lot of years and a lot of hours, and was missing out on other things that needed to take priority," says Valley. "He knew it was his time, and I can't blame him for that."

Shannon (Cate) Schweyen, the best player in Big Sky Conference history and a Montana assistant coach the last 24 years, was announced as Selvig's successor two weeks after he announced his retirement.

"I was hopeful Shannon would get it. She is such a great coach," says Valley. "Obviously none of us have seen her in the head coach position, but I have faith she is going to do well.

"I'm excited by what Shannon has in store for us. It's going to be a different look on things, but she is confident in what we had before, so it's not like it's going to be a huge change."

But there are changes. There had to be with Schweyen moving into the bigger office with the windows.

She retained assistant coach Sonya Stokken and added Mike Petrino, who spent last season at Colorado, the four years before that at Wyoming, and former Griz great Eric Hays, who is getting his first taste of the college game after a quarter century coaching boys' basketball at the high school level.

If Schweyen had the perfect time and situation to implement changes, this would be the year to do it, when more than half of her team hasn't played a game in a Lady Griz uniform.

She can sleep easier at night knowing her frontline is one of the best in the Big Sky. It starts with Valley, and then there is Sims, who had a transformation of her own last season, going from hot and cold to steady and reliable to occasional force, all within a few months.

There was a 29-point, 15-rebound game against Portland State and a 21-17 double-double against Weber State. In all, Sims had 15 games with 10 or more rebounds. Her 9.3 per-game average ranked second in the Big Sky, and she became a reliable scorer to complement Valley.

"Alycia became a really good rebounder last year. There were some sequences when if she wasn't coming out with the rebound, nobody was," says Schweyen.

Then there is Isaak, who is working to develop into a consistent scorer but is already an excellent interior defender and one of the team's top distributors. Her 63 assists last season were the most of anyone outside of Montana's two point guards.

"I'm excited about having that kind of experience back," said Schweyen of her only three upperclassmen. "They are great leaders and are good for our young kids to look up to as role models."

Montana started Feller and Haley Vining in the backcourt last year, and they leave big shoes to fill. Vining ranked 13th in the nation in assist-to-turnover ratio, with 129 assists against only 51 turnovers, and Feller's 16.7 points per game ranked third in the Big Sky.

Redshirt sophomore guard Sierra Anderson is the most experienced of the team's other three returners. She averaged 16 minutes last season as Vining's backup and would be the logical choice to move into the starting position.

But that would discount redshirt freshman McKenzie Johnston, who's been drawing high praise from people both inside and outside the program who have gotten a look at her wizardry with the ball in her hands.

"We're really excited about Kenzie's future. She's a crafty passer who sees things before they develop. She's exciting," says Schweyen.

Johnston is a pass-first point guard, someone who gets just as excited, if not more so, with setting up one of her teammates to score as she does scoring herself. Anderson has a lot more scorer's DNA in her system.

But before anyone starts a point-guard controversy, know this: Schweyen's decision doesn't have to be binary, an either-or. If Golden State has the Splash Brothers, with Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, Montana has ... something that can go by a clever nickname if it works out like it sounds it might.

"There is the possibility of those two playing together in a lot of our lineups," said Schweyen. "We might be a little smaller in that situation, but there are a lot of teams who play two smaller guards.

"When those two are in, something is going to happen, because they like to run together. They get it and look to run, which is fun to watch."

Redshirt sophomore Jace Henderson, who will see more time at the three this year, is back, as is the hapless Maddie Keast, a two-guard who might as well have a uniform with "Sisyphus" stitched on the back.

Every time Keast gets back on the court from her latest injury, the next one arrives, right on schedule, to set her back again. It happened again this week with an ankle sprain.

Coming off redshirt seasons, along with Johnston, are Taylor Goligoski, a two-guard who is trying to make her game fit within the team's needs and expectations, and 6-foot-2 post player Henny Hearn.

Of the team's five freshmen -- guards Gabi Harrington and Madi Schoening, and forwards Nora Klick, Hailey Nicholson and Emma Stockholm -- Schoening and Klick have stood out for their scoring during the team's preseason workouts.

Of course it's the other end of the floor that will determine Montana's success this season, as it has since Selvig was hired in 1978, because solid team defense has been one of the team's foundations for nearly 40 years.

And Selvig would have experienced the same growing pains with this team that Schweyen will, but that's the nature of youth. The Lady Griz will flounder at times defensively, and only time will tell if they'll have the scoring punch to cover those sins. But isn't that why we watch, from October through March?

"I anticipate it will be a struggle defensively at first, because we have so many young kids trying to learn the kind of intensity and level you need to play at," says Schweyen, who will always have Valley to help mask a lot of those deficiencies as the coach's first team matures.

A new head coach? Two new assistants? Five freshmen and essentially eight newcomers? Allow Valley to speak for all of us. "It's going to be a crazy ride, I know that. But it's going to be fun."

Players Mentioned

Sierra Anderson

McCalle Feller

Taylor Goligoski

Gabi Harrington

Alycia Harris

Henny Hearn

Jace Henderson

Mekayla Isaak

McKenzie Johnston

Maddie Keast

Nora Klick

Hailey Nicholson

Madi Schoening

Emma Stockholm

Kayleigh Valley

Haley Vining

University of Montana Athletics