The day Tennessee came to town

At about the time the last of the 8,371 fans were being shoehorned into Dahlberg Arena, just before her team was set to tip off against Montana 25 years ago tonight, Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summitt took a look around a building that was brimming with Lady Griz fans and buzzing with anticipation of their favorite program facing the No. 1 team in the nation.

"She said, 'It would be a good night to rob somebody's house in Missoula, because the entire town is at this game,' " recalls Debby Jennings, the longtime Lady Vols media relations director, who sat courtside at that game on Dec. 19, 1994, next to the Tennessee bench, as she did for every one of the team's games but three over a distinguished 35-year career.

Montana governor Marc Racicot was there, sitting courtside next to Lady Griz radio play-by-play announcer Andy Baskin, whose one season on the job coincided with the year Tennessee, with three national championships over the previous seven years and holding an 8-0 record that night, came to town.

"There are special moments in life," says Baskin, now a sports-talk radio host in Cleveland. "Watching Ohio State win a national championship. Being in Huntington when the Griz (football team) won the national championship. Being on the floor for the Cavaliers winning the (NBA) title with LeBron.

"You can be a broadcaster and do hundreds and hundreds of games, but only a few stick out. That night was definitely one of them."

About two hours later, after Tennessee had escaped with a 66-61 victory, on its way to a 34-win season and another spot in the national championship game, Summitt exhaled. Just another one of what would be 1,098 wins for Tennessee in 38 seasons under Summitt, a total accrued despite playing almost all of its 1,306 games under the Hall of Fame coach with a target on its back.

"Our crowd was incredible," says Skyla Sisco, a redshirt freshman on that team. "She said after the game, 'We will never come back here. There is no need for us to come back here.' I think she described it as one of the most hostile environments she'd ever been in, which is a huge tribute to our fan base."

This is the story, not just of that night, but of everything associated with it, from how it came to be, to Montana's trip to Knoxville the season before -- the start of the home-and-home series -- to the time the Lady Griz nearly took down the Lady Vols on a December night in Missoula a quarter century ago.

"I remember that it was close and that we had a chance," says Robin Selvig, who would match Summitt's 38 years at Tennessee with 38 of his own at Montana. "I remember the atmosphere. We always had a good atmosphere, but there were a few times we had an unbelievable atmosphere. Stanford in the (1988) NCAA (tournament), the Louisiana Tech game (in 2004). That game. It was a happening."

It's a story best told by the people who were there, either as coaches or players or media. Or just fans, some of whom were witnessing something they'd never experienced before.

"I remember the place being packed. I'd never been at a women's game when a place was that full and the environment that great. It was pretty cool," says Nate Covill, who was a redshirt junior on the Grizzly basketball team that winter.

Little did he know he'd one day marry Angella Bieber, a freshman on that Lady Griz team, a 6-foot-3 center who provided a big spark late in the first half that allowed Montana to be down just two, 29-27, at the break despite trailing by 11 points early on.

This is their story:

Andy Baskin -- Then: Lady Griz radio play-by-play announcer. Now: Sports-talk radio host in Cleveland.

Angella (Bieber) Covill -- Then: Lady Griz freshman from Spokane in 1994-95. Now: Wife of Lady Griz assistant coach Nate Covill, mother of two daughters, employed by K12.

Nate Covill -- Then: Redshirt junior on the Griz basketball team in 1994-95. Now: In his first year as an assistant coach for the Lady Griz.

Rial Cummings -- Then: Lady Griz beat writer for the Missoulian. Now: Retired and living in Seattle.

Debby Jennings -- Then: Media relations director for the Tennessee women's basketball team, a job she would hold from 1977 to 2012. Now: Living in Knoxville and doing PR for Sheex, a performance bedding company started by former Lady Vol Michelle Marciniak, who played in that game in Missoula.

Kristy Langton-Schlimgen -- Then: A junior on the Lady Griz team that played at Tennessee in November 1993, a senior on the team host hosted the Lady Vols in December 1994. Now: An eighth-grade science teacher in Corvallis who lives in Stevensville and is a former referee in the Big Sky Conference.

Bob Meseroll -- Then: Sports editor of the Missoulian. Now: Assistant editor of the Missoulian.

Kelly (Pilcher) Beattie -- Then: A senior on the Lady Griz team that played at Tennessee. Now: Living in Midland, Texas, mother of four girls, a basketball coach.

Shannon Schweyen -- Then: In her second season as a full-time assistant coach the year Tennessee visited Missoula. Now: In her fourth year as Lady Griz coach after replacing Robin Selvig.

Robin Selvig -- Then: Lady Griz head coach in his 17th year. Now: Retired since 2016 and living in Missoula, after 865 wins and 21 NCAA tournaments.

Skyla Sisco -- Then: A redshirt freshman guard the season Tennessee came to Missoula. Now: Living in Missoula. Still faithfully attending Lady Griz games.

These are their words:

Pat Summitt, then Pat Head, was hired by Tennessee prior to the 1974-75 season to be a graduate assistant coach after playing basketball and volleyball at Tennessee-Martin. She was named head coach before the start of the season after Margaret Hutson stepped down to pursue her doctorate degree.

She was 22 years old.

She was coaching the Lady Vols, attending classes for her master's degree, teaching physical education classes and training to continue her own playing career. She would be a co-captain for the U.S. team that earned a silver medal at the 1976 Olympics.

Jennings: I took classes from Pat when she first came to UT.

Jennings earned a degree in journalism from Tennessee in 1977 and would become the first media relations director for the Lady Vols, not long after they placed third at the AIAW Final Four in Minneapolis in March 1977.

She would miss three Tennessee games over the next 35 years. The Lady Vols would win national championships in 1987, '89, '91, '96, '97, '98, '07 and '08. They also finished runner-up five times.

Jennings: You knew what her work ethic was, and you wanted to make sure you were in lockstep with her. She went at a pace that was absolutely ridiculous. She brought out the best in everybody around her. To a person, you didn't want to disappoint her. You didn't want to come with anything less than your A game. That was the expectation.

Pretty early on you could see how she transformed players. She got the best out of every player. She helped them find their greatness.

Tennessee advanced to the Final Four in 1982, the first year the NCAA hosted the event, after making it that far at the AIAW national tournament in 1977, '79, '80 and '81.

In August 1982 she was named head coach of the U.S. women's team that would win gold at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, with Bobby Knight of Indiana coaching the men's team to the gold as well.

Jennings: We'd played that previous March in the national championship game. We were national champs for 37 minutes but fell short to Southern Cal in the final three.

I was with her as the PR liaison with USA Basketball in 1984 when she was the head coach. That's when I think everybody saw Pat's ability as a coach. That's when you saw the ascent really begin to happen.

Tennessee won national championships in 1987, 1989 and 1991. It was at a Final Four when Summitt and Selvig bumped into each other and the Montana coach brought up the idea of their teams playing a home-and-home series.

At the time Summitt and Tennessee were winning their third national championship, Montana had already made eight NCAA tournaments of its own.

Selvig: I had a short visit with her at the Final Four. We were an established program by then. We visited a little bit, said something like, Be interested in playing? We ended up with a phone call. She said, Well, that's one of the places we've never played.

Tennessee went 29-3 in 1992-93, the year before the teams' series would begin in Knoxville, with the Lady Vols falling at Iowa in the regional final of the NCAA tournament.

Montana went 23-5 that season and saw its five-year streak of NCAA tournament appearances snapped with a 64-57 loss at Montana State in the Big Sky Conference championship game.

Tennessee, ranked No. 1, opened the 1993-94 season with an 80-45 victory over No. 8 Ohio State, which had fallen 84-82 to Texas Tech the national championship game the season before.

The game at Tennessee on Nov. 28 was the season opener for Montana after playing a pair of exhibition games.

"Montana may not be a name team to our fans, but we're very aware of their program," Summitt told the Missoulian before the game.

Cummings: She knew Montana. Montana may not have received a lot of national publicity but within the profession, Selvig was respected. Everyone knew what a solid program he had built.

The game in Knoxville was scheduled for Sunday afternoon, the day after the Tennessee football team, under first-year coach Phillip Fulmer, improved to 9-1-1 with a 62-14 victory over Vanderbilt at Neyland Stadium, a facility located just a block from Thompson-Boling Arena, where Montana had a day-before practice.

Selvig: There were 100,000 people with flags on their cars and everything was orange. Holy smokes, a ton of orange. And you always remember you hear (the Tennessee fight song) Rocky Top so much.

Langton: It was overwhelming getting to see that stadium. The thing I remember is their checkered end zones and the number of people. It was insane.

Sisco (who is from Malta): I think I felt pretty small-town, which is probably exactly how you think I'd feel. I'm a small-town kid, and that was pretty big-time. It was cool to see.

Schweyen: Everything was named Summitt this and Summitt that. Just a very historic place to go. Very special to be at a place where women's basketball was at such a pinnacle.

After winding through campus, Montana made its way to 25,000-seat Thompson-Boling Arena, then the largest on-campus arena in the country.

Tennessee had a 34-game winning streak at Thompson-Boling Arena and was 236-28 at home under Summitt when Montana traveled to Knoxville.

Langton: They asked us when we went to practice if we wanted to go in and see their locker room. At that time our locker room was this little, tiny one-toilet-stall, three-open-showers space. One small mirror above a small sink and these tiny, metal lockers. If another person was using the locker next to you, you just had to wait.

Sisco: We were still in the men's visitors' locker room.

Langton: We walked into their locker room and I can't even begin to describe how amazing it was. There were couches and TVs and recliners and refrigerators. A study area. It was huge. Palatial. All carpeted in Tennessee orange. It was a definite experience to see that, then the championship banners.

It was surreal playing the team that had won the national title just two years earlier. You're in the house that Pat Summitt built. She was the face of women's basketball.

Schweyen: It was the nicest locker room I'd seen. Lots of history, with trophies and pictures of players you'd seen in the Final Four.

Selvig: Skyla was redshirting and had a big-time practice.

Sisco: His memory is incredible. I don't even remember the practice. I remember him telling me that story later, how he almost considered not redshirting me for that game, but I don't remember. I was probably all jacked up on adrenaline.

It was disappointing (to not be playing). I was a competitor and it was a big stage. But I knew they were coming to Missoula the following year, so that was a little bit of solace.

Pilcher: We were excited. We knew it would be the experience of a lifetime. I would get nervous for certain games. That was the only time I'd lost sleep the night before. I wondered if I'd be able to get the ball down the court.

The game tipped off at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, with Knoxville hung over from a home football game the day before and an opponent few fans would have known even had a women's basketball program.

Selvig: Pat would have known, but they probably thought it was going to be a major butt-kick.

The game drew a crowd of just 3,426. Tennessee would draw more than 15,000 later in the season in home wins over LSU and Vanderbilt.

Cummings: They didn't have a particularly great crowd, so in a way they kind of got a break with it being a football weekend. They didn't have to face a tough crowd.

But they still had to face the Lady Vols, who raced out to a 15-2 lead, with Tennessee's coach prowling the sideline.

Pilcher: Pat Summitt was over there! Wow, I'm out here playing against Pat Summitt! It was really neat.

Langton: The surreal part was that Pat Summitt was over there coaching this team and I'm playing against them. The deep hole we got into was a bit of being overwhelmed by everything that was going on, being in that setting and being at Tennessee and seeing Pat Summitt over there coaching against you and knowing she had prepped her team to guard you and play against you.

Montana would close to within 23-16 midway through the first half, but a strong finish sent Tennessee to the locker room with a 47-29 lead.

The second half opened differently. The box score play-by-play: Lake from 5 ft. Hinrichs from 12 ft. Langton from 2 ft. Pilcher layin. Koss layin. Lake layin. Pilcher from 8 ft. Beattie for 3. Montana was putting a dent in the Tennessee defense.

Cummings: If you could encapsulate one moment in program history that typified the type of grit his kids had, that would be it. They were down 20 early in the second half and could have folded.

In the second half they shot 64 percent from the field and committed only five turnovers. It was probably one of the best halves of basketball his teams have ever played. They actually had a chance in that game.

Selvig: We were good at the point (with Kelly). We ran Go in that game and they had no answer for her. She kept making big plays. They had their best defender on her. They figured they were going to shut her down. They ended up switching defenders on her.

Cummings: Kelly was as good a point guard as there was in the country her senior season. You could not pressure Montana because Kelly could dribble right through people.

Selvig: We didn't need to put a press-breaker in that year. The press-breaker in the playbook just needed to be a picture of Kelly.

Schweyen: They tried all kinds of presses to slow her down. I can't think of another year we've had somebody like that. Ever. She had an unbelievable burst and change of direction.

Pilcher: That was definitely my strength, my dribbling and passing. I wasn't a fancy dribbler by any means. I could just get it and go really fast down the court, just take off and go. It wasn't fancy but I could get where I needed to go.

We played our game like we normally would and did a good job hanging with them for the most part.

Langton: The biggest thing I took away from those years was we can play with anybody. That was the mentality. We were built with a group of extremely competitive women. You're at Tennessee. Why don't you just roll over and die? You just keep fighting.

With 9:31 to play, Tennessee built its lead to 13, 65-52. Then: Lake driving layin. Beattie steal and layin. Pilcher from 23 feet. Timeout Tennessee. It was a six-point game, 65-59, with 6:28 to play.

Langton: Nikki McCray, the one I had to guard, she was a two-time Olympian, a gold-medal winner, a WNBA all-star three or four times. And those opportunities didn't scare us. Our team was just highly, highly competitive. We went into every game thinking we had a chance to win it. That's how our group was at the time.

Selvig: I remember I felt good when they had to take that late timeout. The game wasn't over. We made a little run back at them.

McCray answered, then Latina Davis to push the lead back to 10. It would finish 82-66.

"I thought we made some real strong runs without Montana pushing the panic button, so they were always in the game," Summitt told the Missoulian after the game.

Selvig: I think we gained some confidence by playing a team of that caliber. We made a run at them. It wasn't one of those where it's, oh no, when is this going to end?

Pilcher: Coming out of the game it was like, wow, we could play with really good teams. It was such a great experience. It did nothing but make us better. It would have been fun playing them in Missoula, but I wouldn't have traded going to Tennessee for anything.

Cummings: That set up what happened the following year.

"I know it's one of the toughest places to play in the country. We're looking forward to it," Summitt said after the game about the rematch in Missoula. "I know in the eyes of a lot of people we have everything to lose and nothing to gain ... but we like to go on the road to places where people are excited about women's basketball."

Tennessee would go 31-2 that season, losing 87-77 at Rutgers and 71-68 to Louisiana Tech in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament. The Lady Vols were never ranked lower than No. 2 in the nation.

Montana would finish 25-5 and return to the NCAA tournament. The Lady Griz, as a No. 7 seed, would host and defeat No. 10 UNLV in the first round, 77-67, in front of a crowd of 7,992. Montana lost 66-62 at No. 2 Stanford in the second round.

The Lady Griz averaged more than 5,000 fans for its home games that season.

Langton: The one I remember was the classic game against Stanford (in 1988, a 74-72 overtime loss in the second round of the NCAA tournament in front of a crowd of 8,709) when we packed the house. It was packed to the gills.

I was just down the road in Stevensville and I'd become friends at that point with (then Lady Griz) Marti Leibenguth and Jeanne McNulty, who was a Stevi kid before she moved to Whitehall in high school.

I had opportunities at other schools in other sports, but the Lady Griz always drew tremendous crowds. That was one of the biggest draws. Back at that time, that wasn't happening in very many places around the country. It was a big draw for me in choosing Montana. And obviously getting to play for Rob.

Tennessee would open the 1994-95 season, the year they would play at Montana, ranked No. 1 in the nation all four major preseason polls.

Bieber: It was an incredible feeling and opportunity. I remember talking to Rob, either my home visit or when I came to visit campus, and that was such a big talking point, to be able to go against the top women's team. It was an amazing opportunity.

Sisco: We knew we were going to have an incredible opportunity on our home floor. It was incredibly motivating that we were going to be in position to upset No. 1. They were a national powerhouse.

Baskin: I remember thinking that women's basketball is pretty amazing, not only because we're selling out Dahlberg on a regular basis and outdrawing the men, but that you could take a team like Tennessee and they'd travel to Missoula. I don't think there is any other sport where you'd be able to do that. I think a lot of that was the respect people had for Rob.

I don't think I went to one Penn State women's basketball game in my four years of college. We always went to the men's games. When I got there in 1990, I learned about this magical thing. I didn't understand what women's sports could be. Now that I have my own daughter, you look at him and say, that guy was really a forerunner of making women's sports important.

You didn't realize how cool it was until you'd go to a place like NAU and there would be no one at the game. Then you'd come home to Dahlberg and you'd be, this is awesome to see how much people appreciate Lady Griz basketball. It was super important to the people of Missoula. What they built was really amazing.

Cummings: At some papers, covering women's basketball would have been seen as kind of a secondary beat. I never felt that way at Montana.

They were consistently one of the top 10 teams in the nation in attendance. They dominated their conference. They had a coach who had opportunities to leave and could have coached anywhere in the country. You knew at the time it was special. The atmosphere at their games was as good as anyplace.

Tennessee's roster of 12 was beyond loaded in 1994-95. Guard Tiffany Woosley, from Tennessee, was the USA Today Player of the Year as a high school senior, the same year guard Michelle Marciniak, from Pennsylvania, was the Gatorade Player of the Year.

Three other players were high school all-Americans. The rest? The state players of the year as high school seniors in Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Maryland, North Carolina, Mississippi and Oregon.

The Lady Griz roster that season: 12 from Montana, two from Washington. The Montana hometowns represented: Browning, Fairfield, Havre, Helmville, Kalispell, Livingston, Malta (x2), Missoula, Philipsburg, Stevensville, Troy.

Cummings: On paper, there is no way the game should have been competitive. But Selvig got good kids who were often overlooked. You have to remember, back then Montana still played (high school) seasons out of sync with most of the country. Girls' basketball was played in the fall. For many Montana kids, they just weren't getting the recruiting visibility.

You get someone like Kristy Langton or Sherri Brooks or Greta Koss or Skyla Sisco. All four of those kids could have been (then) Pac-10 players. It was a different time.

And why wouldn't you want to play at Montana? You're going to play in a great atmosphere at a really good academic school and for a coach who's respected around the country. So that was a reason for kids to stay home.

Tennessee opened its schedule by avenging its season-ending loss the year before, knocking off No. 3 Louisiana Tech 69-62.

The Lady Vols would open the season 8-0. Six of those wins came against ranked teams, including a 105-69 victory over No. 2 Stanford in Knoxville. Another win: 95-29 over Maryland, at the time the worst loss in Terrapin history. The beatdown came on Maryland's home floor.

Four of the wins came in a seven-day window: at unranked Maryland, home against No. 15 Purdue, then games in Richmond, Va., against No. 12 Virginia and No. 7 Penn State on back-to-back days.

Jennings: If it was an opportunity to grow the game and for our team to grow, (Pat) would take advantage of it and make the trip. We used to joke that sometimes we thought she scheduled at the team's expense, maybe even back-to-back games to accommodate TV. We would tease her, we're not the NBA!

She wanted to expose her players to as many places of the country as she could, to get them outside of the realm of what they think their world is. So we traveled extensively.

Selvig: That's the thing she liked about coming here. She would appreciate where a team is supported by fans. She respected that we had it going in terms of support.

Cummings: One of the things you really have to admire about her is that she would play anyone anywhere. I think she felt she was carrying the flag for women's basketball. She wanted to increase interest in the sport.

We'll go to Missoula, they'll pack that place and loosen the rivets, and we'll learn things about ourselves. That's the way she coached her teams.

Langton: How many other teams in the Big Sky have the No. 1 team in the country come to their gym? That's a tribute to Rob and the type of respect he had nationally because of the program he had built and the following of the Lady Griz.

As players we knew that any team that came into our gym was going to have a rough time. The fans we had at the time were super, super knowledgeable. That doesn't mean they weren't one-sided. That's what made it such a fun atmosphere, as long as you were wearing copper and gold.

Tennessee opened its two-game road trip west with a 78-72 win at No. 8 Colorado on a Saturday night in Boulder to improve to 8-0. Because of the physical nature of the game and the subsequent travel to Missoula, the Lady Vols did not practice at Dahlberg Arena on Sunday, the day before facing the Lady Griz.

Jennings: I remember the night before the game, we were downtown at a steak place and had the most giant steaks we'd ever seen in our lives. Everybody joked with Pat, when we were able to joke with Pat, that maybe we shouldn't have eaten so much steak.

Montana had reached as high as No. 17 in the AP and USA Today Coaches polls in 1993-94. The Lady Griz were unranked at the time they faced the Lady Vols. Tennessee's average margin of victory against other non-ranked teams in 1994-95: 29.7 points per game.

Bieber: Nobody was delusional at how good they were. But at the same time, it was treated as, here's what we need to do, here's what we need to do well, here is what we can expect, here is what we need to prepare for.

There was always a lot of effort put into whoever we were playing. We never, ever underestimated anyone. In that way, it was treated as any other game. Because the way Rob approached it, we took every opponent very seriously. We never underestimated anyone. I thought we were as prepared as we could have been.

Langton: We didn't prep any differently. We didn't train any differently. He didn't do a pregame speech any differently. He was always consistent. Here's what we're going to do, and we're going to go out and compete.

That's one of the things I appreciated most about him. I remember sitting in a lot of pregame meetings and we're about to play the bottom team in the Big Sky and we're undefeated, there are going to be 60 people in the stands and he's acting like it's Tennessee. He never took any game any differently.

Montana hosted No. 12 Vanderbilt in a preseason WNIT game in November and lost 69-65. The Lady Griz also lost senior point guard Carla Beattie to an Achilles injury in that game. She would not play against Tennessee.

Montana took a four-game winning streak into mid-December, improving to 6-2 with a 64-43 win over MSU Billings, with a nine-day break before facing Tennessee.

Meseroll: We knew the stature of the Lady Vols, so we pulled out all the stops and had days of coverage leading up to the game and multiple people covering the game.

Cummings: I talked to some of the coaches who had faced Tennessee, and one of them said, Good luck. My condolences. They are awesome, a revolving door of talent.

The only other time a No. 1-ranked team in the country came to the fieldhouse was 1953, when Indiana, the defending NCAA champs, came in and blew out the Griz by 20 points in the inaugural game at the fieldhouse.

We knew this wasn't something that happened very often, and our coverage reflected that.

Selvig: There was a buzz. It was Tennessee. You're getting the biggest name in women's basketball at that time.

On the day of the game, Tennessee arrived for its practice not long after the Montana men's basketball team, coached then by Blaine Taylor, had wrapped up its own workout.

Covill: We were goofing around after practice, shooting and stretching, and in walk the Tennessee Lady Volunteers. All we heard was, All right guys, get off the court, it's our time. We looked around, and it was Pat Summitt. We all got off. Coach was a little surprised to get kicked off, but he didn't dare say anything. That was a pretty cool moment.

Montana wasn't the only team going into the game shorthanded. Tennessee would play without McCray, who had a broken hand. The senior was a Kodak All-American the year before and runner-up for Naismith Player of the Year.

Cummings: All five starters in the game (for Montana) had at least seen action in the game the year before. I'm sure that helped give them the feeling that, hey, we can compete with these guys, because we've done it before.

(Pat) was concerned. She wasn't scared, but she knew what her team was getting into in a way I don't think her players did. A lot of teams over the years did that. They tended to underestimate Robin Selvig's teams. But Pat knew all about Robin and his teams.

"We're not as good a team day in and day out as Tennessee," Selvig told the Missoulian leading up to the game. "But we can be Monday night. The second half last year ... we played about as good a half as I can remember. And we found out that they're human."

Bieber: We had some amazing seniors in Jodi (Hinrichs), Kristy and Lora (Morast). They were just incredible leaders for us younger girls. They really exemplified how we carried ourselves with confidence.

Jennings: (Pat) was a little concerned about (our players) looking forward to Christmas. That was always the thing with the last game before the holiday break. That was always kind of a trap game. We may have had a little Christmas-itis, because you guys absolutely laid into us.

Baskin: There was such a buzz in the air about that game. Oh my god, we've got this team full of all these players from Montana and we're about to play the giant of women's basketball.

Montana held Tennessee to 26.5 percent shooting in the first half, but the Lady Vols still built an 11-point lead, 24-13, with five minutes remaining before the break.

Cummings: Tennessee did not shoot well from the field, but what they did do, and it was probably Selvig's worst fear, is that they dominated the glass. They'd miss the first shot, then they'd grab the offensive rebound and get the putback or draw the foul. I think they had 16 second-chance points in that game.

Bieber would finish the game with seven points. It was her five points late in the first half that saved Montana. She completed an and-one with 3:45 to go, then scored again a minute later to give the Lady Griz a spark.

Bieber: The one thing that sticks out to me, and I can still feel, is the energy of our crowd. It was so loud and so supportive, that adrenaline rush becomes even more when you have that support behind you.

Cummings: Bieber was the key to that game. They had trouble getting anything in the interior, and she came in and scored a little bit inside at a time when they really needed it.

"Super. Unbelievable. We were not making any baskets and Angella goes in and makes them. I would not have guessed that. When you're a freshman and maybe supposed to be scared, it's a heck of a deal," Selvig said afterwards.

Langton scored Montana's first five points of the game. She added four more in the final 97 seconds of the first half. Her basket with 14 seconds left sent Montana to the locker room trailing by only two, 29-27.

Baskin: I remember Kristy being one of the hardest-working players I'd ever seen. Nothing was going to stop her. She was one of those players you always appreciated when she was on the floor. I remember, particularly that night, working as hard as I'd ever seen her work. Nobody seemed to be intimidated by the fact we were playing Tennessee after we got past the first timeout.

Jennings: We didn't play our best. I remember at halftime, (Pat) said, It's going to be a long trip home for some of you if we lose this game. You'll regret not playing your best and your hardest.

Montana would never lead in the second half, and Tennessee would again build its lead to 11 six minutes in. The Lady Griz kept coming. Sisco made back-to-back baskets 25 seconds apart. She scored again at the 7:01 mark to bring Montana within five, 53-48.

Schweyen: We kept running a play where Skyla ran off a screen and was scoring on a jump-stop crossover. Pat was going nuts and ripped her jacket off. She thought it was traveling. She was getting fired up.

Selvig: It wasn't traveling.

Sisco: I remember one was a terrible shot. I did a jump-stop crossover step from the free throw line and shot it lefty. It was a terrible decision, one of those shots where Rob was yelling No! and then when it went in he was like Great shot!

I remember running back down the court as Pat was losing it. I think she was calling it the Montana crossover. It's not a travel. It's not something, I guess, they had seen too much. Probably another reason she didn't want to come back. She thought there were probably different rules out here.

Cummings: I thought, wow, (Skyla) has arrived. She was blowing past the Tennessee guards at times and they had the best backcourt in the nation. You could just see she could play with anyone. She was as good as their guards, and she was a freshman. That was impressive to me. That was the game I thought she could be one of the best players the program has ever seen, which proved to be true.

Montana forced the No. 1 team in the country into 21 turnovers and held Tennessee to 35.5 percent shooting. Led by Langton's four and Sisco's three, the Lady Griz had 11 steals. They also blocked eight shots, four by Hinrichs. The Lady Vols had two.

Montana would finish the year with 425 steals, 88 more than any other team in program history. Sherri Brooks had more than a quarter of them, with 115, a school record.

Cummings: Sherri Brooks might have been the best individual defender Selvig ever had. She had a real knack for getting into passing lanes and disrupting people. That was a real ball-hawking team. You had to be very sharp with your ball-handling and passing against that team.

Montana had eight blocked shots. I don't think there were many teams that blocked six more shots than Tennessee did that season. I'd be willing to bet that was the only time that happened.

After going up seven, 55-48, with 6:21 to go, Tennessee would go nearly three minutes without another basket. Twice in that stretch Montana cut the lead to three.

Selvig: We defended them well. That's what I was most proud of that game. We just couldn't get over the hump.

Sisco: We had the ball late in the game. I think I was inbounding it to Sherri and it was so loud in the gym. We were maybe six feet apart. I was yelling at her and she couldn't hear me. It was so deafening. I had to wave my arms just to get her attention.

A driving layup by Brooks with 3:45 to go made it 57-54. On Tennessee's next possession, Woosley hit a 3-pointer. The Lady Vols led by six.

With just over two and a half to play, Marciniak got the ball at the top of the key. She made her way to the right wing and hit a bank shot. Tennessee led by eight. Ball game.

Cummings: Woosley hit a tough one. Then Marciniak hit a shot I still remember vividly to this day. She pump faked and dribbled to her right. She hit a bank shot from 15 feet. To this day I'd like to ask her if she intended to bank that ball. She didn't have a great game but she hit probably the key shot.

"They've got kids who are used to answering the ball," Selvig told the Missoulian after the game.

Montana outshot Tennessee and had fewer turnovers. What the Lady Vols had was Pashen Thompson, a 6-foot-1 sophomore who had averaged 5.8 points and 5.6 rebounds the season before as a freshman.

On this night she had 14 points and 19 rebounds, 13 of them coming on the offensive end, more than half of Tennessee's 24 offensive boards. That was the difference.

Meseroll: If they hadn't had Pashen Thompson, the Lady Griz might have won.

Jennings: That was a breakout game for Pashen. Probably the most unlikely player to step up and have that kind of game. She was the one who kind of bailed us out. It was a great trip. It was a teaching moment, and Pat was always about teaching moments.

Langton: I remember particular players very well. I'll never forget (6-foot-4 freshman center) Tiffani Johnson. She was just a massive human. Back then it wasn't that common to have a lot of 6-4 women on your team, like they had. She was 6-4 and there was no doubt she was 250 pounds.

You're trying to box her out and keep her off the boards or make a move against her and she is almost hip-checking you and watching you fly out of bounds. Those are the things I remember from the game, the physicality of playing a team of that caliber. It took a lot out of us, but every single one of us was up to the challenge.

Baskin: One of the other reasons I remember that game is that Tennessee had a player by the name of Vonda Ward (a 6-foot-6 center from Northfield, Ohio) and afterwards she became a heavyweight boxer. I still see her from time to time around (Cleveland), and she'll talk about that trip. She could be one of the toughest people on earth.

Tennessee may have been done and off for a Christmas break, but Montana got on a plane the next morning for a game at Nevada on Dec. 21. The Lady Griz won 73-47.

Sisco: I felt like it gave us a ton of confidence. It gave our slightly odd zone a lot of confidence. That's what threw them in kind of a loop, a very tightly packed 2-3 zone that they probably hadn't seen. We knew we couldn't match up with them athletically. That's the brilliance of Rob. We had some different zone sets, and I think we befuddled them a little bit.

It gave us confidence that we had the tools in the tool box that would work against anyone in the nation. It sounds funny to say that we lost and walked away with a ton of confidence, but when it's the No. 1 team in the nation, an absolute powerhouse at the time, it gives you a ton of confidence. Not only for just a year. That was a game that boosted my confidence personally for four years.

Montana would win the Big Sky by two games and then roll to the tournament title -- and into the NCAAs, again -- with a 27-point win over Eastern Washington in the semifinals, an 18-point victory over Montana State in the title game at Dahlberg Arena.

More than 6,100 were in the building.

Cummings: It was a really special time, and you knew it. Looking back, I feel fortunate I was around. It just doesn't happen that often, when you get the right confluence of the right coach in the right situation with the right support. In the 80s and 90s, that's the way it was at Montana.

She may never have wanted to return, as least as a visiting coach, but Pat Summitt could still appreciate the night her team survived Missoula, Dahlberg Arena, the Lady Griz and Robin Selvig, and held on to its No. 1 ranking.

"This community has been great about supporting women's basketball. That's my kind of place," she said.

University of Montana Athletics

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