Lady Griz on two-game road trip

Wednesday, November 30

Fullerton, Calif.

6:00 PM (MT)

Montana

Cal State Fullerton

11/29/2016 3:56:00 PM | Women's Basketball

By: Montana Sports Information

PDF Game Notes

The Montana women's basketball team will play a pair of road games this week, traveling to face Cal State Fullerton and Seattle as the Lady Griz' nonconference schedule continues.

Montana will play the Titans on Wednesday at 6 p.m. (MT) and the Redhawks at 8 p.m. (MT) on Friday.

Coverage: Both games will air locally on KGVO 101.5 FM/1290 AM, with Tom Stage and Dick Slater. The radio broadcast is also available through the All Access page at gogriz.com. Both schools are offering video coverage of this week's games. Links are available at gogriz.com.

Where they stand: Montana is 2-3 after going 1-1 at last week's Lady Griz Classic at Dahlberg Arena. Montana, behind 27 points from Taylor Goligoski, defeated Incarnate Word 61-56 in the tournament opener. The Lady Griz shot 21.6 percent and fell to Utah State in Sunday's championship game 65-47.

Cal State Fullerton is 1-4 after picking up its first win of the season Monday night, 97-49 over Whittier College. The Titans opened the season with losses to San Diego, Idaho, Wyoming and Denver.

Seattle, which hosts Loyola Marymount on Tuesday, is 1-5 under first-year coach Suzy Barcomb, but it's a strong 1-5. The Redhawks lost by four to Big Sky Conference media favorite Idaho and lost in overtime at Boise State, a team that is undefeated and sitting atop the Mountain West Conference standings.

More on Cal State Fullerton: The Titans are led by fourth-year coach and Montana State graduate Daron Park, who has a record of 29-68. ... CSUF returned just one starter from last year's team that went 3-27 and tied for eighth in the Big West with a 1-15 league record. ... Cal State Fullerton is led in scoring by junior guard Iman Lathan, who played two seasons at Nevada before transferring to Fullerton. ... The Titans were picked ninth (last) in the Big West preseason coaches' and media polls.

History: Montana is 5-0 against Cal State Fullerton, with all five games being played in Missoula. The most high-profile of the previous meetings came during the 1988-89 season, when the No. 10 Lady Griz knocked off the No. 7 Titans 82-67 in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.

Behind 20 points from Kayleigh Valley and 18 from McCalle Feller, and 49.2 percent shooting as a team, Montana defeated Cal State Fullerton last season in Missoula 86-51.

More on Seattle: The Redhawks are under first-year coach Suzy Barcomb, who spent the previous six years at NCAA Division II Cal State East Bay. The dozen years before that, she was the head coach at the University of Puget Sound. She replaced Joan Bonvicini and her 700-plus career wins. ... SU went 9-21 last season, ending the year on a 10-game losing streak. ... Seattle was picked seventh out of eight teams in the WAC preseason poll. ... Senior Kaylee Best, who was voted second-team preseason All-WAC, is averaging a team-leading 18.2 points per game.

History: Montana leads the all-time series 4-3 and has gone 2-1 against the Redhawks in Seattle, including a 70-64 overtime victory two seasons ago.

Last year at Missoula, the Lady Griz led 28-25 at the break but shot just 19.4 percent in an ugly second half to lose 58-44. McCalle Feller scored 15 points to lead Montana.

Montana Notes:

* Montana lost a Lady Griz Classic for the first time since 1998 on Sunday when Utah State came away with a 65-47 win. That the Aggies, who improved to 5-1, won wasn't a surprise, but Montana didn't help itself, shooting below 22 percent in both the first and second halves to finish at 21.6.

It was the team's lowest shooting percentage in a game since at least 1995-96.

"We didn't particularly run things well offensively," said first-year coach Shannon Schweyen. "Their pressure was part of it, but mostly it was a lack of organization on our part. I'm hopeful we can clean that up a little bit.

"We need to put ourselves in a position to get some easy baskets. We missed a lot of layups in that game. You'd like to get a few of those to go down. It would be nice to be in a position where you have a chance to make some high-percentage shots."

* Freshman Madi Schoening finally had the breakout game everyone has been waiting for. She knocked down a pair of 3-pointers and finished with a team-high 12 points on Sunday. The rest of the team shot 16.3 percent.

Schoening scored a total of 10 points in the team's first four games on 20 percent shooting.

"It was nice to see Madi come alive a little bit," said Schweyen. "She needed that. We knew she was capable of it. She had some great scrimmages, but she'd been quiet on the offensive end, so it was good to see her knocking down some shots and get some confidence."

* Montana has allowed its first five opponents to shoot 42.8 percent, which is un-Lady-Griz-like. That won't last, of course. No Montana team has allowed anything above 40 percent for an entire season. The highest field goal percentage for a season was the 39.8 allowed by the 1984-85 team.

"We have some stretches defensively when we really do some good things," said Schweyen. "We have some rotations where everybody is moving and covering down. We just need to string more of those together. Right now it's a little sporadic when good things are happening."

* Rachel Staudacher, a fifth-year senior who came out of retirement to help give depth to a depleted roster, had a positive showing in her season debut on Sunday. She had four points, four rebounds and an assist in just 12 minutes.

* Though Montana missed 10 second-half free throws, the Lady Griz still shot 66.7 percent from the line on Sunday, an improvement on the 38.5 they put up against Massachusetts and 40.0 they shot against Incarnate Word. It raised Montana's season percentage to 62.1.

* One game after putting up 27 points against Incarnate Word, a scoring performance that matched Mandy Morales's program scoring record by a freshman, Taylor Goligoski was limited to five points on 2-of-11 shooting by Utah State.

Three-dot notes: Montana ranks sixth in the nation in fewest fouls per game (12.6) and 19th in fewest turnovers (12.6). ... With Sunday's loss, Montana is now 0-3 when playing in the day this season, 2-0 playing at night. ... Maddie Keast's 8-for-12 effort at the line on Sunday was the most makes and attempts by a player this season. Montana also set season highs in makes (22) and attempts (33). ... Montana's 11 made field goals on Sunday were a season low and led to the team averaging just 0.72 points per possession. ... Mekayla Isaak has grabbed nine or more rebounds in four of five games this season. Her average of 8.8 ranks third in the Big Sky. ... Taylor Goligoski's 27 points against Incarnate Word is the fourth-highest total in the Big Sky this season. Idaho's Geraldine McCorkell and Weber State's Deeshyra Thomas both have 30-point scoring games. ... Sierra Anderson, McKenzie Johnston and Gabi Harrington combined to go 0 for 15 against Utah State. Throw in Goligoski going 2 for 11, and that quartet shot 2 for 26. Unless they're playing blindfolded, that won't ever happen again. ... Keast played a career-high 20 minutes against Utah State. ... She may not have shot well, but Goligoski did dish out a season-high three assists on Sunday. ... In the last three games, Johnston has 15 rebounds and 11 assists but has missed all 14 of her shot attempts. ... Sunday was the first time this season Harrington did not make a 3-pointer. The over/under for that happening in her career: 10. ... Hailey Nicholson matched her season high with eight rebounds against Utah State. ... In its three losses, Montana is shooting 26.1 percent and allowing its opponents to shoot 47.8. ... The Lady Griz have more offensive rebounds than every opponent this season, though that largely can be attributed to more missed shots available to be grabbed for a team shooting 30.9 percent. ... Montana's five points in the first quarter on Sunday were a season low. The team's nine points in the third were the fewest in a second-half quarter this season. ... Montana led for just 17 seconds at home on Sunday, after Madi Schoening put the Lady Griz up 2-0 just 15 seconds in.

Around the Big Sky Conference: It's early, but three teams picked for bottom-half finishes are atop the league standings with one loss each.

The most impressive body of work belongs to Northern Colorado, which has won five straight games since losing its opener to still unbeaten Colorado. The Bears' last four wins have come by a total of 14 points.

Weber State is now 5-1 after dropping a two-point overtime decision against Stetson on Sunday. And then there is 3-1 Southern Utah, which won by 16 points at Utah State last week (huh?) and lost by just 12 to Arizona on Saturday.

Games of interest this week: On Thursday, Idaho State plays at Utah State and Eastern Washington plays at unbeaten Boise State. ... Idaho is in Hawaii and will face 3-1 Oregon State (and Beaver assistant coach Katie Baker) and 5-0 UNLV. ... On Friday Southern Utah will play at Wyoming in a game that will tell us a lot. ... On Sunday, Northern Colorado plays at Colorado State, which already has more losses this season (3) than all of last season (2).

Upcoming: Montana will have a single game next week, playing at Stephen F. Austin on Saturday, Dec. 10. The Lady Griz will go into their short Christmas break after home games against Rocky Mountain (Dec. 12), Wyoming (Dec. 18) and Colorado State (Dec. 21).