Lady Griz in Iowa for pair of games

Saturday, November 19

Iowa City, Iowa

11:30 AM (MT)

Montana

South Dakota State

11/17/2016 7:57:00 PM | Women's Basketball

PDF Game Notes

By: Montana Sports Information

PDF Game Notes

The Montana women's basketball team will play its first games of the season away from home when it travels to Iowa this week for the Hawkeye Challenge in Iowa City. The Lady Griz will play games on Saturday and Sunday at Iowa's Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Montana (1-0) will open the tournament against South Dakota State (2-0). The Lady Griz and Jackrabbits will tip off at 9 a.m. (MT) on Saturday.

Montana will either play Massachusetts (1-1) at 10:30 a.m. (MT) on Sunday or Iowa at 1 p.m. (MT). The Hawkeyes will play the late game on Sunday no matter the results of Saturday's games.

Coverage: Both games this weekend can be heard in the Missoula area on KMPT 930 AM, with Tom Stage and Dick Slater. Fans outside of listening range can catch the audio stream through the All Access page at griz.com. Live stats also are available.

The hits just keep on coming: If first-year head coach Shannon Schweyen had been asked before the season to list the players her team could least afford to lose to injury, senior forward Kayleigh Valley, the Big Sky Conference preseason MVP, would have been at the top.

Senior forward Alycia Sims probably would have been the next name on the list.

And now Montana goes up against the nation's top-ranked mid-major team in South Dakota State without either one.

Valley was lost for the season after suffering a knee injury back on Oct. 10 in the team's fourth practice of the year. Sims went down with her own knee injury in Tuesday's season-opening win over Great Falls. The extent of the injury is not yet known, but she won't be in Iowa City this weekend.

That leaves Schweyen with an active roster of junior Mekayla Isaak and 11 underclassmen, nine of whom are freshmen or redshirt freshmen. The few healthy returners accounted for 247 points last season. In other words, with Valley and Sims out, more than 88 percent of last season's scoring is gone.

"I felt like we were beginning to find an identity without Kayleigh," said Schweyen. "We were finally getting comfortable with what we're doing and what kind of shots we want to be getting and who we want taking them.

"With Alycia out, it's a whole different thing. Normally you can play with your what-ifs a little bit, like what if someone gets in foul trouble? Now that becomes a challenge, because there are only so many pieces of the puzzle you can move around."

Starting spot open: With Sims' starting spot open, two players become options. Sophomore forward Jace Henderson has one year of experience, freshman Hailey Nicholson, one year removed from playing Class B in Montana, is coming off a strong performance on Tuesday.

Nicholson had seven points and eight rebounds in just 16 minutes off the bench against the Argos and had the team's best efficiency rating of 13.

Klick to redshirt: Freshman Nora Klick, a six-foot forward, will redshirt this season, the only of the freshmen to do so. Klick had back surgery in high school and is still dealing with complications.

Tough road challenge awaits: South Dakota State, ahead by eight with four minutes left, was in great position last March to win at Stanford in the second round of the NCAA Tournament and make the program's first Sweet 16. The Cardinal prevailed 66-65 on a three-point play with eight seconds left.

Now the Jacks are loaded for another run. They picked up 30 of 34 first-place votes in the Summit League preseason poll, junior Macy Miller was named the league's preseason Player of the Year, and five SDSU players were named preseason All-Summit League out of 11 total on the first and second teams.

The Jacks top the CollegeInsider.com mid-major poll, rank No. 25 in espnW's national poll and are sitting No. 1 on Graham Hays' mid-major poll at ESPN.com.

South Dakota State opened its season with home wins over Creighton, 63-56, and Southern Illinois-Edwardsville, 82-49. The Jacks are shooting 45.1 percent through two games.

"Defending them is going to be a challenge," said Schweyen. "They have multiple weapons, and they execute things very well. They know what they are looking for, and every play is run to perfection. They do all the little things that make a big difference and make a play work right.

"They are everything you'd expect to see in a good basketball team. Most of our players have never seen a team like this. It will be a big awakening for them, but it's going to be fun. I'm hoping we respond and play with confidence."

History: Montana and South Dakota State have met just once before. Early in the 2008-09 season, they played at the Caribbean Challenge in Cancun, Mexico.

With Mandy Morales, Sonya Rogers and Britney Lohman, it was Montana's best team of the last decade, and South Dakota State still won 64-59, one of just five losses for the Lady Griz that season while going 28-5 and making the NCAA Tournament.

Distant connection: South Dakota State coach Aaron Johnston is in his 17th year leading the Jackrabbits, but back in 1999-2000, he was in his first year as an assistant coach at SDSU under Nancy Neiber. I was in my second season as an assistant coach at Northern Colorado under Greg Bruce.

Late that season, Neiber took a leave of absence, making Johnston the interim head coach. His first game was against UNC in Greeley. We trailed 36-19 in the first half before rallying for an 88-76 victory, so I've got that going for me. Which is nice.

Johnston, who has a career record of 394-133, was elevated to head coach after the season. I left coaching at the same time to take an $8,000 sports information internship at a Division II school in southeast Kansas. Advantage: Johnston.

And then: Montana will face either Massachusetts or Iowa on Sunday. The Minutewomen are 1-1, with a 61-47 loss at Buffalo to open the season and a 70-58 home win over North Dakota State on Monday.

Like Montana, UMass is under a first-year coach in Tory Verdi. He previously was the head coach at Eastern Michigan.

The Minutewomen, who went 12-18 last season, were picked to finish 14th out of 14 in the Atlantic 10 preseason poll. They tied for 11th last season with a 6-12 league record.

Montana and Massachusetts have not played before.

Iowa is 3-0 and coming off a 75-60 win at North Dakota on Wednesday night. The Hawkeyes also have home wins this season over Oral Roberts, 96-76, and Hampton, 84-51.

Iowa, which went 19-14 last season, is coached by Lisa Bluder, the winningest coach in program history. She is 326-188 in her 17th year at Iowa and has led the Hawkeyes to 15 postseason appearances (12 NCAA, three WNIT) in her first 16 years.

The two teams have met twice before. Montana defeated Iowa 63-54 back in 1980-81 in the first edition of the Lady Griz Classic (which is still going strong and will be held next week). The Hawkeyes won the more meaningful rematch, 64-53 at Missoula in the first round of the 1991 NCAA Tournament.

Montana coach Shannon Schweyen, then Cate, scored 36 points to close out her junior season.

"If we end up playing UMass, it will be an interesting game," said Schweyen. "They play a lot of zone, and we haven't seen much zone yet. And Iowa is really good, so no matter what, it will be fun to see some different things and have to adjust."

Ups and downs of a young team: Against Carroll, in Montana's final exhibition game, the Lady Griz shot 51.9 percent but got out-rebounded 41-36 and gave up 21 offensive rebounds that the Saints turned into 14 second-chance points.

The next game, Tuesday's 66-55 win over Great Falls, the Lady Griz had a 55-30 rebounding advantage but shot 35.9 percent. The Argos grabbed just six offensive rebounds, which led to just two second-chance points.

"There are going to be areas that have slippage and other areas that we are going to do well in," said Schweyen. "As a staff we just have to keep working hard to identify the things we need to keep getting better at and trying to keep it simple.

"To go out there and piece it all together every time out is asking a lot. We need to remember that there are going to be moments when it isn't all coming together for them."

Montana three-dot notes: The Lady Griz may have wins over MSU Northern, Carroll and Great Falls this season, the first two in exhibition games, but Montana will still need to knock off preseason favorite Lewis-Clark State before it can lay claim to the Frontier League championship. ... The Lady Griz had eight players score between six and 10 points in Tuesday's win over Great Falls. ... Sims had 10 points when she went down with her injury early in the third quarter. Redshirt freshman McKenzie Johnston also scored 10 points. ... Junior Mekayla Isaak's 10 rebounds were a career high. ... Redshirt freshman Taylor Goligoski may have struggled with her shooting -- she finished 2 for 12 -- but she grabbed nine rebounds and had just a single turnover in 29 minutes. ... Sophomore point guard Sierra Anderson had a nice game Tuesday in her first career start. She finished with nine points (on just three shots), four assists and three rebounds in 28 minutes. ... Freshman Madi Schoening started on Tuesday but played just three minutes in the first half after picking up two early fouls. She played 11 minutes in the second half and still managed to finish with six points, seven rebounds and a pair of assists (and no turnovers) in her collegiate debut. ... It was fun while it lasted: Freshman Gabi Harrington made all five of her 3-point attempts in Montana's two exhibition wins. She made her first attempt against Great Falls, making her 6 for 6, before finally missing in the fourth quarter. If she makes six out of every seven for the rest of her collegiate career, we can live with that. Harrington finished with nine points in her debut.

Upcoming: Montana will host the Lady Griz Classic next week. It will feature three teams and three games over five days. Montana will face Incarnate Word (0-2) on Wednesday at 7 p.m. The Cardinals will play Utah State (3-0) on Friday at 2 p.m. Montana will take on the Aggies at 2 p.m. on Sunday.

Montana will then get back on the road for games at Cal State Fullerton and Seattle as November turns to December.