Lady Griz Classic opens on Wednesday

Wednesday, November 23

Missoula, Mont.

7:00 PM

Montana

Incarnate Word

11/22/2016 2:53:00 PM | Women's Basketball

By: Montana Sports Information

PDF Game Notes

The Montana women's basketball team will host the annual Lady Griz Classic this week when it welcomes Incarnate Word and Utah State to Dahlberg Arena. This is the 36th edition of the tournament.

Montana will play Incarnate Word at 7 p.m. on Wednesday. Incarnate Word and Utah State will meet at 2 p.m. on Friday, and Montana will play Utah State at 2 p.m. on Sunday.

Where they stand: Montana is 1-2 after dropping games last weekend to South Dakota State and Massachusetts at the Hawkeye Challenge in Iowa City. ... Incarnate Word, which is in the fourth and final year of transitioning from NCAA Division II to Division I, is 0-2, with road losses to start the season at TCU and Texas State. ... Utah State, which hosts Southern Utah on Tuesday, is 3-0. One of those wins was a 64-56 home-court victory over Montana State.

Coverage: Wednesday's game will be aired locally on KGVO 101.5 FM/1290 AM, with Tom Stage and Dick Slater calling the action. Sunday's game will be carried on KMPT 930 AM. ... All three tournament games will have video coverage through the All Access page at gogriz.com, plus live stats.

Tournament history: Through the Lady Griz Classic's first 35 tournaments, Montana has posted a record of 67-3 and enters this year's edition having won 16 straight Classic championships.

The Lady Griz won last year's title with an 83-69 victory over Florida Atlantic and 86-70 win over Utah State. McCalle Feller earned MVP honors after scoring 66 points in the two games, with a dozen 3-pointers on just 20 attempts. Kayleigh Valley was named all-tournament.

Montana's three losses at the tournament have come against Washington in 1980-81, Drake in 1981-82 and Arkansas in 1998-99. The Lady Griz have hosted the tournament every year since 1980-81, with the exception of 2009-10.

First-year coaches featured on Wednesday: Montana's Shannon Schweyen and Incarnate Word's Christy Smith are both in their first year as head coaches at their schools. Both were accomplished collegiate players.

Schweyen scored a program-record 2,172 points at Montana and was voted to the 10-player Kodak All-America team as a senior in 1991-92.

Smith, a point guard, scored 1,459 points at Arkansas and had 507 assists, and led the Razorbacks to the Final Four as a senior in 1997-98. She was an assistant at Purdue and Arkansas before being hired by Incarnate Word last April.

More on Incarnate Word: The school, with an enrollment of 9,940, is located in San Antonio, Texas. ... The Cardinals compete in the Southland Conference. ... UIW went 6-23 last year and finished 12th in the Southland with a 3-15 league record. ... The Cardinals were picked 13th (last) in this year's coaches' poll. ... The league's top three teams are Abilene Christian, Central Arkansas and Stephen F. Austin, which Montana will face on the road in two weeks. ... Incarnate Word has been outscored by more than 32 points per game through its first two contests. It lost 88-40 at TCU to open the season, then lost last Tuesday at Texas State 67-50. ... The Cardinals shot 27.5 percent in their two losses. ... Senior forward Celia Garcia Paunero is averaging 14.0 points and 8.0 rebounds per game.

Montana storylines

* Staudacher returns -- Forward Rachel Staudacher, who played in all 31 games last season, averaging 10.6 minutes in a reserve roll off the bench, left the team late last summer. She was convinced last week by Schweyen to return for her fifth year and will be a redshirt senior.

She had her first practice of the season on Tuesday morning.

Montana has been hurt at that position by season-ending injuries to Kayleigh Valley and Alycia Sims, and Henny Hearn is now also on the disabled list.

"I've just been watching our depth decrease there," said Schweyen. "We're basically one more injury away from where we can't even function properly.

"Rachel didn't leave on bad terms. She was getting done with school and just wanted to concentrate on academics, so I reached out to her and told her we needed some help. She needed to think about it, so we talked a little bit later, and she agreed to come back.

"She has to get back into the flow of things and get comfortable again. She's got to get back in basketball shape and get familiar with what we're doing, but she did some good things in her first practice."

* Starting five -- Good luck predicting Montana's starters for Wednesday. As of Tuesday morning, even Schweyen didn't seem to know what she would do.

Redshirt freshman point guard McKenzie Johnston didn't start on Sunday against Massachusetts, but she had a six-assist, zero-turnover, 10-rebound game. Redshirt sophomore Maddie Keast didn't start either and came off the bench to score 11 points and grab nine rebounds, both career highs.

Part of last weekend's struggles, beyond having to play South Dakota State, which defeated Iowa on Sunday in the Hawkeye Challenge championship game and is one of the top 25 teams in the nation, was timing.

Montana lost Sims for the season in last Tuesday's home win over Great Falls. The team took Wednesday off, then practiced on Thursday. The team's scheduled practice time at Iowa on Friday wasn't an option after travel difficulties had the team arriving a day later than it was supposed to.

"We basically had one practice without Alycia before we played South Dakota State," said Schweyen. "We had one practice to make any sort of adjustments going into that tournament.

"We're going to have to reinvent ourselves again, and we haven't had time yet because we haven't had enough practices. We have nothing set in stone right now."

* South Dakota State is the real deal -- The Jackrabbits were efficient offensively, shooting 53.1 percent against the Lady Griz and averaging 1.14 points per possession in Saturday's 84-43 victory, Montana's most lopsided loss since 1977-78.

The Lady Griz shot 25.4 percent and turned the ball over 17 times. They averaged just 0.59 points per possession.

The Jacks led 26-8 at the end of the first quarter, 43-16 at the half and built a 47-point lead in the third quarter.

"We went into that game knowing it was going to be a chance to play a great team and wanting to learn some things from it, which I think we did," said Schweyen. "They are incredibly skilled at every position and do a lot of things right. It's the kind of team you aspire to be.

"I thought we got some good shots in the first half, but we missed four or five layups. We could have been hanging around a little more at the half than we were, which would have made the start of the second half feel a little different. But I was proud that we never gave up and kept battling."

* Lady Griz let one slip away -- Montana had every chance to knock off Massachusetts on Sunday, but a 3-pointer at the buzzer by Hailey Leidel gave the Minutewomen a 59-58 win.

The Lady Griz fell behind 18-4 but fought back to take a second-quarter lead. Montana went ahead again on a Taylor Goligoski jumper with 70 seconds remaining.

"It was disappointing, because we felt we should have won that game," said Schweyen. "Unfortunately the last play of the game didn't go our way, but it wasn't just the last play of the game. We had a chance to get it done, but little things throughout the game cost us."

There was the big deficit at the start, and Montana went just 5 for 13 from the free throw line, which looks even worse in a one-point loss.

But there were plenty of positives. The Lady Griz had 32 points off the bench, turned the ball over just seven times, rallied from a 14-point deficit in the first half and 12-point hole in the second to twice take the lead, and grabbed 22 offensive rebounds, which led to 18 second-chance points. UMass had none.

Montana had no trouble getting good shots against Massachusetts' zone defense -- the trouble came in making enough of those looks -- and held the Minutewomen to 23 second-half points on 32.1 percent shooting.

"I'm proud of the way we fought back and of some of the other things we did in that game," said Schweyen. "A lot of times you can learn a lot more by losing a game like that instead of winning by one."

* Shooting woes -- Montana shot better than 50 percent in both of its exhibition wins, but the Lady Griz have not even approached 40 percent in three regular-season games.

Montana shot 35.9 percent in its season-opening win over Great Falls, then finished below 30 percent in both of last weekend's losses. The Lady Griz shot 25.4 percent against South Dakota State, 29.7 percent against Massachusetts.

Redshirt freshman Taylor Goligoski opened the season 3 for her first 29 (but went 3 for 4 in the second half against UMass to help spark a comeback) and is shooting 18.2 percent. Freshman Madi Schoening is 3 for 17 through three games. Both players have started the season's first three games.

Montana three-dot notes: Wednesday will be the first meeting between Montana and Incarnate Word. ... Shannon Schweyen is in good company. Robin Selvig, who would go on to win 865 games, started 1-2 as well in his first season as coach, with a season-opening road trip that had 21- and 27-point losses. Montana went 13-13 in its first year under Selvig. ... The Lady Griz rank near the bottom of the national statistics in field goal percentage (.303) and 3-point shooting (.222). ... Mekayla Isaak had eight points on 50 percent shooting and nine rebounds in Sunday's loss to Massachusetts. ... As part of Maddie Keast's 11-point, nine-rebound performance on Sunday, she went 3 for 4 from 3-point range to post the team's most statistically efficient game (+17) of the season. ... Keast had five career highs against the Minutewomen. She also had career bests in blocks (1) and minutes played (17). ... McKenzie Johnston, who had 10 boards against UMass, is ranked second on the team in rebounding at 6.0 per game behind Isaak's 7.3. ... Gabi Harrington's 15 points against Massachusetts were the most points scored by a Montana player this season. ... Montana's 33 3-point attempts against the Minutewomen's zone were more than the Lady Griz took in the first two games combined. ... Montana ranks ninth nationally at just 13 personal fouls per game and 25th in turnovers at 12.3. ... Massachusetts scored 40 of its 59 points in the paint compared to Montana's 10. The Lady Griz had an 18-0 advantage in second-chance points and 32-0 edge in bench points. ... Montana held the lead for just 90 seconds in its two games last weekend.

Around the Big Sky Conference: Weber State (3-0), Idaho (2-0) and Southern Utah (2-0) have all opened the season without a loss. The Vandals, with a pair of road wins against Division I opponents, have the only undefeated record of the three to take seriously. WSU squeaked out a six-point home win over California Miramar. SUU has a home win over Antelope Valley. ... Northern Colorado (3-1) might have the best body of work to date, with three-point home wins over Florida Gulf Coast and San Diego last week. FGC lost in the championship game of the WNIT last season, San Diego made it to the third round of the WNIT. ... Sacramento State is doing Sac State things. The Hornets have given up 91, 96, 99, 99 and 102 points in opening the season 1-4. ... Upcoming games of note: Idaho plays at Washington on Tuesday night, Idaho State plays James Madison and Davidson on Thursday and Friday in Cancun, Southern Utah gets a home game against Arizona on Saturday, and North Dakota plays at Kansas on Sunday.

Upcoming: Montana will be on the road again next week. The Lady Griz will play at Cal State Fullerton (0-3) next Wednesday, at Seattle (1-3) next Friday.