Lady Griz seek bounce-back win against Lopes

The Montana women's basketball team will continue its season-opening, four-game home stand when its hosts Grand Canyon on Tuesday night at Dahlberg Arena.

The Lady Griz (1-1) and Lopes (2-1) will tip off at 7 p.m.

Montana will host Arizona (4-0) on Sunday at 2 p.m. The Wildcats are coming off an 83-58 road win at No. 22 Texas on Sunday. Arizona hosts Prairie View A&M on Wednesday.

After Sunday's game, Montana will play at home just once until Jan. 2. The Lady Griz, who will play six of seven on the road during that 38-day stretch, will host MSU Billings on Friday, Dec. 20.

At a glance (Montana): After opening the regular season with a record-breaking 98-45 victory over MSU Northern on Nov. 5, the Lady Griz fell 76-63 to Fresno State on Friday night in their first game against a Division I opponent.

Montana led for just 70 seconds against the Bulldogs and trailed the final 25 minutes and by as many as 23 points in the second half.

Fresno State grabbed 15 offensive rebounds, which led to 17 second-chance points, and hit 10 3-pointers while Montana went 0 for 12 from the arc.

At a glance (Grand Canyon): The Lopes are 2-1 and will be playing their first road game of the season on Tuesday night.

Grand Canyon opened the season with a 72-53 victory over Benedictine, lost 78-76 in overtime to North Dakota and handed Southern Utah its first loss of the season on Thursday, 69-65.

Grand Canyon quick hits:

* The Lopes went 7-20 last season, 1-13 away from home, and finished seventh in the Western Athletic Conference with a 5-11 league record.

* Grand Canyon was picked seventh out of nine teams in the WAC preseason poll.

* Senior forward Da'jah Daniel, who averaged 7.8 points and 7.2 rebounds last season, her first after transferring from Trinity Valley CC, was voted preseason second-team All-WAC.

* Grand Canyon is in its third year under coach Nicole Powell, who previously worked as an assistant for Kelly Graves at Oregon.

Montana-Grand Canyon history: Montana and Grand Canyon met for the first time last season in Phoenix, two days after the Lady Griz lost 100-51 at Arizona.

Trailing 17-12 early in the second quarter, Montana outscored Grand Canyon 57-30 the rest of the way for a 69-47 victory.

All five starters scored in double figures, with Jace Henderson totaling 12 points, seven assists and six rebounds, Taylor Goligoski a team-high 13 points.

Fresno State rewind: That Montana outshot Fresno State on Friday night, percentage-wise, hardly mattered. Instead, the Bulldogs won by 13 because they got 11 more shots than the Lady Griz, thanks to their offensive rebounding, and they hit 10 3-pointers to Montana's zero.

It's how you build a 23-point, second-half lead on the road.

"The made threes was the difference in the game," said coach Shannon Schweyen. "The O boards were actually not as bad as I thought when we watched the video. There were some that came off awkwardly, and that happens. But we still have to be a team that runs those down."

The game was tied through one quarter, 16-16, before Fresno State outscored the home team 21-12 in the second to take a 37-28 lead into the locker room.

McKenzie Johnston scored 13 points in the third quarter, which was good. That the rest of the team was held to a single Jamie Pickens free throw was not so good.

Fresno State led 57-42 after three quarters and built a 23-point lead, 74-51, midway through the fourth.

Gabi Harrington, Sammy Fatkin and Taylor Goligoski, each of whom is capable of putting up 20 on any given night, combined to shoot 2 for 18 and score seven points.

Montana shot 55.6 percent inside the arc and outscored Fresno State by 12 in the paint, with Emma Stockholm, Abby Anderson and Jamie Pickens going 12 for 19.

"Looking back at the shots we got, I think a majority of them were really good shots," said Schweyen, whose team made 11 3-pointers in its opener against MSU Northern. "I had to feel good about getting some penetrate-kicks and some wide-open looks. I felt like those were going to go.

"If anything, we should have been a little more patient and gotten it to our inside kids a little more. Our kids dominated inside. They couldn't handle us."

Johnston finished with 19 points on 7-of-11 shooting. She added five rebounds, three assists, two blocks and two steals.

Pickens, who went 4 of 5 both from the floor and the free throw line, added 12 points in 18 minutes off the bench.

After improving to 3-0 with its win on Friday, Fresno State lost for the first time on Sunday, 75-64 at Portland, which is off to a 4-0 start under first-year coach Michael Meek.

Meek previously coached at Division III George Fox. He replaced Scott Rueck at the school, when Rueck left to turn Oregon State into a national power nearly a decade ago. George Fox: Cradle of Coaches.

Grand Canyon preview: That Montana won handily at Grand Canyon last December would seem to suggest good things are going to be in store on Tuesday. But not so fast.

Of the Lopes who played in that game against Montana, only four of them are back this season as Powell has continued to remake her roster.

"This is a completely different team. They've done a nice job of going out and getting some new kids," said Schweyen. "They're a different team this year, and they're good."

Three of the team's four leading scorers are first-year players -- two freshmen, one a sophomore transfer. The other is the 6-foot-4 Daniel, who had a 21-point, 11-rebound double-double in Grand Canyon's overtime loss to North Dakota.

She had 24 points and 22 rebounds last season in a home loss to Cal Baptist.

"She is causing problems for people. She's a nightmare mismatch for some teams," said Schweyen. "Not only are they better offensively this season, they are good defensively. They've got lots of size at every spot and good quickness."

The Lopes defeated Benedictine, as they should have, then lost to North Dakota in a game that featured 14 lead changes.

On Thursday, against a Southern Utah team that entered the game with two quality wins, Grand Canyon shot 47.4 percent, with six players scoring between eight and 14 points.

The Lopes led 35-22 at the half and by 17 midway through the fourth quarter before a late push by the Thunderbirds, who ended Montana's season in March at the Big Sky tournament, made the final margin four points.

"They handled them pretty easily. It was much more of a spread than the score indicated," said Schweyen.

"We ought to be fired up after the last one. You always want to get back out there when you feel you've played bad and prove you're better than that."

Montana notes:

* Madi Schoening played on Friday night against Fresno State, her first regular-season game since Gonzaga in the season opener last year. She played 15 minutes off the bench and had two points, a block and a steal.

* The last time Montana failed to make a 3-pointer: when the Lady Griz went 0 for 10 in a 61-43 loss at Idaho State on Dec. 29, 2016.

* By scoring 19 points on Friday, McKenzie Johnston moved past Barb Kavanagh (1981-85), McCalle Feller (2012-16) and Krista Redpath (1995-2000) on the Lady Griz career scoring list.

She is up to 31st in program history with 1,030 points. The next two she'll pass: Johanna Closson (2004-08) and Torry Hill (2010-14).

* Johnston is 19 assists away from breaking into the top 10 in that category.

* Freshman Jamie Pickens is averaging 11.5 points and 6.0 rebounds through her first two games as a Lady Griz. She is 8 for 10 on shots inside the 3-point line.

* Montana's first two opponents this season have gone 16 for 40 (.400) from 3-point range.

Upcoming: Home for Arizona on Sunday, 2 p.m. tip. Catch the Lady Griz while you can. They won't be home for another Division I opponent until Jan. 2.

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Players Mentioned

Abby Anderson

Sammy Fatkin

McCalle Feller

Taylor Goligoski

Gabi Harrington

Jace Henderson

McKenzie Johnston

Jamie Pickens

Madi Schoening

Emma Stockholm

University of Montana Athletics