Lady Griz open season at Wyoming

Monday, November 13

Laramie, Wyo.

6:30PM

Montana

Wyoming

11/12/2017 2:49:00 PM | Women's Basketball

By: Montana Sports Information

PDF Game Notes

The Montana women's basketball team will open its 2017-18 regular season on Monday when it faces Wyoming on the road in Laramie. The Lady Griz and Cowgirls will tip off at 6:30 p.m. at Wyoming's Arena-Auditorium.

Opening tips:

* Monday's game will be the season opener for Montana. Wyoming is 1-0 after posting a 73-47 home win over Division II Adams State on Saturday afternoon.

* Wyoming has won five straight against Montana, the longest winning streak for either team in a series that dates back to 1983-84. This is the 14th consecutive year the two teams have played, the 20th overall.

* Liv Roberts, a graduate of Missoula's Sentinel High, suffered a season-ending knee injury against Colorado State in February. Despite missing the final few weeks of the season, she was still voted All-Mountain West. She made her return to the court on Saturday, scoring 14 points in 16 minutes.

* Montana returns five starters this season, through four of them are still underclassmen. Wyoming's four returning starters are all upperclassmen.

* Wyoming advanced to the second round of the WNIT last season, the seventh trip to a national tournament for the Cowgirls in coach Joe Legerski's first 14 years at his alma mater.

* Montana went 0-15 away from home last season. The team's last win outside of Missoula was against Northern Arizona in the first round of the Big Sky Conference tournament at Reno in March 2016. The Grizzlies' last true road win came at Northern Colorado one game before that.

Coverage: Monday's game will air on KMPT AM 930 with Tom Stage and Dick Slater, and will have video coverage through the Mountain West Network and live stats. Links to those options can be found at gogriz.com.

What they did:

Wyoming: The Cowgirls went 22-10 last season, the eighth time they won 20 or more games in coach Joe Legerski's first 14 years at his alma mater. Wyoming reached its seventh national tournament under Legerski, advancing to the second round of the WNIT before falling at home to Washington State.

Montana: The Lady Griz, hindered by injuries and forced to use a lineup that was mostly young and inexperienced, went 7-23 and lost in the opening round of the Big Sky tournament in coach Shannon Schweyen's first year. Those losses were more than Schweyen lost in four years as a player at UM (18).

What they have back:

Wyoming: The Cowgirls lost just one starter, guard Hailey Ligocki, who averaged 7.3 points. Headlining the returners are Roberts, who averaged 15.6 points (on 49.6 percent shooting) and 7.8 rebounds as a junior, both team highs, and senior forward Natalie Baker (9.7 ppg/5.7 rpg).

Montana: Pretty much everybody. The team's top five scorers last season were either true or redshirt freshmen, the top seven scorers were underclassmen. Taylor Goligoski led Montana in scoring (10.7/g), while point guard McKenzie Johnston averaged 8.3 points, 5.0 rebounds and 3.0 assists.

Where they were picked:

Wyoming: The Cowgirls went 13-5 in the Mountain West last season to finish second behind Colorado State. Wyoming was picked second in this year's preseason poll behind Boise State, which won last season's conference tournament. Roberts made the five-player preseason all-league team.

Montana: The Lady Griz, 11th last year at 4-14 in Big Sky games, were picked third in this year's preseason coaches' poll, fifth in the media poll, collecting two first-place votes in both. That voting was done on the assumption that Montana would be at full health, which didn't work out (more below).

What they've done this season:

Wyoming: The Cowgirls have yet to be challenged this season. They defeated Division II Chadron State 77-25 in their lone exhibition game and shot 51 percent on Saturday in their win over the Grizzlies, in a game Wyoming led 63-27 entering the fourth quarter.

Montana: Montana won both of its exhibition games, defeating Carroll 55-48 -- the Fighting Saints would win at Mountain West favorite Boise State six days later -- and Black Hills State 70-46 on Tuesday. Madi Schoening led Montana in scoring both games with 13 and 19.

History: Monday will be the teams' 20th meeting, with Wyoming using its five-game winning streak to pull ahead 10-9 in the series. The Cowgirls are 6-3 at home against the Lady Griz, with wins in six of the last seven meetings in Laramie.

In last year's matchup in Missoula, the Cowgirls went 7 for 20 from 3-point range and shot 45.8 percent overall to win 67-42. Liv Roberts had 14 points, five rebounds and four assists. McKenzie Johnston led the Lady Griz, who shot 32.1 percent and went 1 for 14 from the arc, with 10 points and seven rebounds.

Montana personnel update:

* Montana opened the season with a roster of 15, which went to 14, then 13 in early October when Kayleigh Valley, the preseason Big Sky MVP for the second straight year, was lost for the season to a knee injury. Three days later Alycia (Sims) Harris announced her medical retirement from the program.

* Freshman Abby Anderson is going to redshirt, and redshirt freshman Caitlin Lonergan will not be eligible to play until late December after transferring from Montana State last January.

* Sophomore Taylor Goligoski, last year's leading scorer, missed both of Montana's exhibition games with an injury. Junior Sierra Anderson missed the Black Hills State game with an injury. Both are questionable for Monday's opener.

* Coach Shannon Schweyen, whose three daughters won a Class AA volleyball state title over the weekend, still has another day to think about it, but as of Sunday she was leaning toward playing freshman guard Sophia Stiles this season instead of redshirting her.

* All that leaves Montana with just three upperclassmen on its active roster: senior Mekayla Isaak and juniors Sierra Anderson and Jace Henderson.

Montana-Wyoming preview:

For the most part teams know what they are going to get when they go up against a Joe Legerski-coached team: A unit that is hard to score against and runs an offense based on patience and an understanding of what a good shot is.

There is good reason Wyoming's top nine scorers last season all shot 40 percent from the field or better.

"Their offensive efficiency is almost unbelievable," said Schweyen. "Their offensive numbers are just so good as a team. They run a lot of things where there are a lot of reads and motion, and there is some freelancing to it."

Because of it, more-experienced players tend to function better in Legerski's system, which makes this Wyoming team, with four starters and 12 letterwinners back, even more dangerous than last year's team that won 22 games and made the WNIT.

"The more experienced they are, the better they get at it, and the tougher it is to defend them," said Schweyen. "We're going to have our hands full. It's going to be a challenge for us, because they run a lot of tricky stuff."

Montana was in no position to challenge Wyoming in last year's game at Missoula. Valley had been lost, as had Sims, and Mekayla Isaak sat out with a broken hand suffered earlier in December at the Lady Griz Classic.

Montana's starters were okay in that game, but there was little production from the bench. The Lady Griz reserves went 3 for 18.

Wyoming led 16-8 at the end of the first quarter and rolled from there, posting the most lopsided outcome in the series since the Cowgirls' win in 2009-10.

"I watched video from last year when we played them. It was just a different deal with all those freshmen. We gave up a lot of things that I don't think we'd give up right now," said Schweyen.

"It's exciting to see how much better we are right now, especially defensively, though I think we still have a long way to go. I just feel a lot more confident going into a game with these guys. They've been there and experienced some of those moments.

"I feel much more confident that we can make adjustments and figure things out as we go along."

Around the Big Sky Conference: It was a mostly successful day for the Big Sky as the schedule for every team except Montana opened on Friday. ... Idaho hit 18 3-pointers (on 36 attempts) in its 83-69 win at Colorado State. ... Northern Colorado shot 50.9 percent to pull off a 94-88 win at No. 20 DePaul. ... Idaho State got 19 points from Estefania Ors to win 74-69 at Seattle, a team Montana will host next month in front of a crowd that is projected to be north of 6,000. ... North Dakota played at Oregon State. The teams were tied at the half and the Beavers led by just three going into the fourth quarter before pulling out a 65-55 win. ... Northern Arizona fell at home, 96-93 to UC Santa Barbara, as the Loree Payne era opened in Flagstaff. ... And there were a pair of ugly road losses in California. Montana State lost 98-47 at USC (the Trojans shot 60.3 percent and committed just TWO turnovers), and Eastern Washington lost 81-56 at Fresno State, a team Montana will face next month on the road. Delaney Hodgins scored half of her team's points, going for 28, with 10 rebounds and seven steals.

A look ahead: Montana will host 2-0 Kentucky on Thursday at Dahlberg Arena. The Wildcats will go into that game 2-0 after Friday's 101-70 home win over Sacramento State and Sunday's 72-34 home victory over Gardner-Webb.

Montana will host Gonzaga on Saturday at 7 p.m. Like Montana, the Bulldogs don't play their first game until Monday night, when they play at Colorado State. That will be Gonzaga's only game before playing in Missoula on Saturday.