Lady Griz School Day kicks off regular season

The Montana women's basketball team will open its regular-season schedule this week when it hosts MSU Northern in the third annual Lady Griz School Day game.

The game will tip off at 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday in Dahlberg Arena.

Montana will then have a lengthy break until its next game, when the Lady Griz host Fresno State on Friday, Nov. 15.

Coverage: Can't join the 6,500 kids and chaperones in attendance? Catch the game on SWX with Riley Corcoran and Krista Redpath or KMPT 930 AM/99.7 FM with Tom Stage and Dick Slater. Or on Pluto TV.

Tuesday talking points

1. It's another School Day game:

What began as a dream of taking what a handful of other schools were doing and making it better came to fruition in December 2017 when the Lady Griz drew more than 7,000 for their home game against Seattle.

That Montana lost that day 78-64, getting outscored 27-14 in the fourth quarter, has mostly been forgotten because of what it's led to.

The crowd was 6,610 last year when Montana doubled up Providence 90-45.

More than 5,600 kids are expected on Tuesday, with another 900 chaperones doing yeoman's work of keeping them corralled and focused.

With the usual support of Lady Griz fans, who will make even a midweek morning tipoff work, the attendance should once again approach 7,000.

"You think you'd be excited for your first game, then this adds a little something extra to it, going out there in front of a crowd like this," said fourth-year coach Shannon Schweyen. "Hats off again to our marketing department, which does such a tremendous job making this a success.

"The most rewarding thing has been providing so many of these kids with an opportunity that they would never otherwise get. The feedback we get as a program has been so positive."

2. What they did:

Montana went 14-16 last season and tied for sixth in the 11-team Big Sky Conference at 9-11 in league. Beset by injuries (again), the Lady Griz limped to the finish line, going 4-8 in February and March.

No. 7 Montana lost a first-round game of the Big Sky tournament to No. 10 Southern Utah 64-56.

The team's lone senior, Jace Henderson, was named second-team All-Big Sky Conference.

The Skylights went 13-18 and finished sixth out of seven teams in the Frontier Conference at 5-13. MSU Northern's season came to an end with a loss at Rocky Mountain in the league tournament.

Peyton Kehr and Sydney Hovde, both of Columbia Falls, were named honorable mention All-Frontier Conference. Hovde, who began her career at North Idaho, was voted the league's Top Newcomer.

Both are juniors on this year's team.

3: Where they were picked:

Despite having seven players back who have starting experience in a league full of questions and unknowns, Montana was picked fifth in the Big Sky preseason coaches' poll, seventh in the media poll.

The Lady Griz picked up one first-place vote in the coaches' poll, two in the media poll.

MSU Northern was projected to repeat its sixth-place finish in the Frontier Conference coaches' poll.

4. What they've done so far this season:

Montana won both of its exhibition games, defeating Lewis-Clark State 81-69 and Carroll 74-70 in overtime.

The Lady Griz saw their fourth-quarter lead shrink to eight points against the Warriors but did enough offensively -- they shot 50 percent -- to remain just comfortably enough ahead.

Gabi Harrington erupted for 24 points on 8-of-13 shooting, and McKenzie Johnston had a 12-assist, zero-turnover game.

On Tuesday against the Saints, Montana trailed 65-62 in the final minute of regulation. That's when Taylor Goligoski saved the day with a 3-pointer, which sent the game into overtime.

The Lady Griz took the lead with 3:07 to go in the five-minute extra session and held the advantage to the finish line.

Johnston had 19 points, eight assists and five boards. Harrington added 16 points, Emma Stockholm 14 and Goligoski 10. Abby Anderson and Jamie Pickens both had 10 rebounds.

While Montana won twice, it allowed Lewis-Clark State to shoot 46.2 percent, Carroll 42.4 percent, numbers that won't lead to a lot of success during the regular season.

"That's a lot of points to be giving up," said Schweyen. "We've got to start taking way more pride in that. The first game, we played a lot more kids, but they were kids who were experienced players.

"Anybody who's been around long enough knows you're going to have tough nights offensively, and you need to be able to rely on your defense. Right now, we're not anywhere near where we need to be in that department. You name it, communication, intensity, basic fundamentals."

MSU Northern, which is counting Tuesday's game as an exhibition, is 1-0 on the season after opening with a 63-50 home win over Mount Royal, of Calgary, Alberta.

The Skylights won despite shooting 31.5 percent, thanks to a 34-9 advantage in free throws attempted.

Junior guard McKenzie Gunter, a transfer from Walla Walla Community College, scored a team-high 14 points. Hovde added 10, senior Hailey Nicholson grabbed 14 rebounds.

5. Familiar names, faces:

MSU Northern's Hailey Nicholson will have plenty of flashbacks when she steps onto the floor at Dahlberg Arena on Tuesday. She played two seasons for the Lady Griz, 2016-17 and 2017-18.

She played 60 games over two years, starting 21. She finished with two-year averages of 5.5 points and 3.9 rebounds.

She scored 17 points on 7-of-11 shooting as a freshman in a home loss to Idaho and was voted the team's Grace Geil Most Improved Player after the season.

As a sophomore she scored 17 points in a home win over Southern Utah and was voted to the Lady Griz Classic All-Tournament Team.

Then she left to return closer to her hometown of Malta. As a junior she averaged 7.3 points, 4.4 rebounds.

She is the first former Lady Griz to face Montana since Lexie Nelson. Nelson left Montana after her freshman season and had a nice career at Eastern Washington.

Her final time facing her former team was a 55-51 Lady Griz victory in Dahlberg Arena in the semifinals of the 2015 Big Sky tournament.

And then there is MSU Northern junior forward Tiara Gilham, younger sister of former Lady Griz Shanae Gilham. The transfer from Montana-Western had a high scoring game of 20 points last season in her first year as a Skylight.

She opened this season with seven points against Mount Royal.

6. McKenzie Johnston and the record book:

Johnston reached 1,000 career points in Montana's Big Sky tournament loss to Southern Utah. That made her the 34th player in Lady Griz history to reach the milestone.

The only other players to do so before the end of their junior seasons? The top five scorers in program history (Shannon Cate, Mandy Morales, Hollie Tyler, Lisa McLeod and Katie Baker) and Kayleigh Valley, who would have been top five had she gotten to play her senior season.

That's good company.

If she were to match last year's scoring output of 364 points, she would finish the No. 8 scorer in program history.

She also enters her senior season with 365 career assists. That leaves her just 31 from cracking the top 10 in that category.

If she were to end up in the top 10 in both, she would join the short list of ... Shannon Cate and Mandy Morales, arguably the top two players in program history.

7. Lady Griz fans do it again:

Tuesday's game will be a good start to Montana once again leading the Big Sky Conference in home attendance.

The Lady Griz finished at 3,180 last season, their highest home average since 2008-09, to rank 38th in the nation.

Since the NCAA began tracking women's basketball home attendance in 1984-85, Montana has never finished lower than 43rd and has 15 times finished in the top 20.

8. Look who's back:

The 2018-19 season ended with Sophia Stiles on the bench, as she was for the entire year (outside of a mid-December exhibition game). Taylor Goligoski was there too, as was Madi Schoening.

Golilgoski missed the final two months of the season. Schoening played in only the season opener, at Gonzaga, before being shut down by injury.

Stiles, who started both exhibition games, had two points, two assists and a steal against Lewis-Clark State, seven points, four rebounds, two assists and two steals against Carroll.

Playing off the bench, Goligoski had 17 points in the two games, going 3 for 8 from the arc.

Schoening will not play on Tuesday.

9. Three-dot notes:

Emma Stockholm shot 9 for 15 in the two exhibition games ... A 28.2 percent shooting team from the arc last season, which ranked 300th out of 349 Division I teams, Montana shot an encouraging 7 for 19 (.368) from three against Lewis-Clark State. The Lady Griz dropped down to 26.1 percent (6 for 23) against Carroll ... In two exhibition games, McKenzie Johnston had 20 assists against three turnovers ... Montana's starting lineup for both exhibition games: McKenzie Johnston, Sophia Stiles, Gabi Harrington, Emma Stockholm, Abby Anderson ... After watching Lewis-Clark State get to the line 12 more times than they did, the Lady Griz took 24 free throws against Carroll to the Saints' 14 ... Looking ahead to Fresno State, the Bulldogs were picked third in the Mountain West Conference, behind Boise State and New Mexico.

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Players Mentioned

Abby Anderson

Shanae Gilham

Taylor Goligoski

Gabi Harrington

Jace Henderson

McKenzie Johnston

Hailey Nicholson

Jamie Pickens

Madi Schoening

Sophia Stiles

Emma Stockholm

Kayleigh Valley

University of Montana Athletics