The making of a point guard

When is a toilet more than just a toilet? And what can it tell us about Montana's next great point guard?

It was a little more than a year ago when the girls' basketball team from Capital High, who a month later would go on to win the Class AA state title, the first in program history, convened for a Valentine's Day party, complete with a box-decorating contest.

There were the standard entries, all clever in their own way, fashioned out of shoe boxes and covered in pink and red. Five had sets of eyes, with menacing teeth-filled mouths serving as the card slots. One used a unicorn theme. A couple incorporated, of course, basketball.

And then there was McKenzie Johnston's. It was outrageous, one of a kind, and there was no way she wasn't going to win the contest.

"Kenzie wasn't going to be beaten," says her high school coach, Bill Pilgeram. "She made a toilet box complete with magazines, flushing handle and a hole for the cards. Of course she won the prize."

A simple gathering of teammates and friends, but once an element of competition was added, it was on. And it was over. Johnston, who went 10 for 10 from the free throw line in the fourth quarter of the state championship game to break the hearts of Bozeman High, wasn't going to be denied.

She is in Reno this week for the Big Sky Conference women's basketball tournament, her season of athletic purgatory (i.e. redshirting) nearly complete. She goes to the practices and the game-day shoot-arounds. She watches film. But when her teammates take the floor, she takes her spot on the bench.

Johnston was seven times all-state for the Bruins in volleyball, basketball and softball, and her summers revolved around club-team practices and tournaments, and countless shooting sessions that might renew her annual membership in Pilgeram's 10,000-shot club.

And for the first time she's been denied this year that which has defined her for most of her life: the ability to compete. The chance to come out on top. She still wins when Montana wins, because that's the essence of team, but victories enjoyed vicariously still aren't quite the same.

"I'm a really competitive person and always need to be doing something, so it's been different not being in the games and competing," she says, careful to use "different" when "difficult" might have better expressed her feelings.

"It's just a different role. It takes practice to a different level. That's my time to compete. And I take cheering on the bench pretty seriously now, since that's one way I can help the team."

Johnston had little chance of not getting to this point, not with a dad who was a former professional motocross racer and two older sisters who were ballers.

Born and raised in Anaconda, where a lack of more entertaining things to do often meant going to the gym with her sisters, Johnston and her family moved to Helena when she was in grade school. It wasn't long until she met Rayna Pilgeram, whose dad would coach the girls from fourth grade to a state title.

"I remember her being small for her age but being able to dribble circles around everyone else. She was always in the gym with her older sisters. She always loved to play and compete," says Pilgeram, whose daughter is a freshman setter on Carroll's volleyball team.

Johnston started playing volleyball as a freshman in high school, because what else was a girl supposed to do all fall while waiting for the start of basketball season?

In the spring it was softball. She started in right field as a freshman, was all-state as a sophomore after moving to third base and an all-state shortstop as a junior and senior, the diamond equivalent of the point guard.

"Shortstop is kind of the leader of the infield. You always have to be talking, always have to be level-headed," says Johnston, who, no surprise here, graduated with a 4.0 GPA and as her class's valedictorian. Because what is GPA but a scoreboard for the classroom?

But basketball was always love No. 1. She led Capital High to a 62-9 record as a three-year starter, capped by last March's title and tournament MVP honors.

"It got to the point where she knew what I was going to tell her before I would tell her. She's one of the highest-IQ players I've ever had," says Pilgeram, who started coaching at Capital in 1998 with the boys' team. He is in his 10th year heading the girls' program.

"From a point-guard standpoint, she's one of the best we've ever had in terms of her knowledge of the game and being able to make all the players around her better. She was the engine that made us go. When she was out there, everything went better."

One college program or another in the state was going to land Johnston. Carroll had one advantage going for it. Johnston's older sister Jordan will be wrapping up her own playing career this month at the NAIA national tournament.

"I looked up to her a lot. She'd tell me all the great things about playing there and about how much fun she was having. It drove me to keep working hard so I could play at the next level and keep competing after high school," says Johnston.

But when you're a schoolgirl in Montana and the Lady Griz tab you as a chosen one, it's an opportunity almost impossible to turn down. "Once I knew they had interest, I was pretty set on coming here."

So she's here. Or more specifically she is in Reno, at the end of the bench with Montana's other two true freshmen, Taylor Goligoski and Henny Hearn, both of whom also are redshirting.

Starting point guard Haley Vining is a senior and will be vacating her spot once Montana loses one more game, whether it's this week or at the NCAA tournament. Shooting guard McCalle Feller and her 1,000-plus career points is also on her way out.

But Johnston knows nothing is guaranteed and that minutes don't just trickle down to the next player in line. Redshirt freshman point guard Sierra Anderson is playing well backing up Vining, and Montana signed a big incoming class of five in November, three of whom are guards.

That will make it eight redshirt and true freshmen on next year's team. With only three seniors leaving, it will create a bottleneck of available positions and minutes for just about every player not named Kayleigh Valley or Alycia Sims.

"Redshirting will help me in the long run," says Johnston. "It's really helped my confidence. But I keep reminding myself that I have to keep working for it. You need to earn your spot."

If Valentine's Day boxes tell us anything, if toilets can be symbolic, it's that Johnston will not be denied, no matter the challenge at hand.

Players Mentioned

Sierra Anderson

McCalle Feller

Taylor Goligoski

Alycia Harris

Henny Hearn

McKenzie Johnston

Kayleigh Valley

Haley Vining

University of Montana Athletics