Lady Griz close out home stand with Vikings, Bobcats

The Montana women's basketball team will wrap up a four-game home stand this week when it hosts Portland State and Montana State at Dahlberg Arena.

The Lady Griz (10-8, 5-4 BSC) will face the Vikings (12-8, 6-4 BSC) for the second time this month when the teams square off at 7 p.m. on Thursday.

On Saturday at 2 p.m. Montana will face the first-place and preseason-favorite Bobcats (12-6, 8-1 BSC), who don't have a game this week prior to facing the Lady Griz.

Following its home contests this week, Montana will play six of its final nine regular-season games on the road leading up to the Big Sky Conference tournament in Boise, which opens on Monday, March 9.

Coverage: Both games this week will have the usual radio (KMPT 930 AM/99.7 FM) and Pluto TV coverage. Saturday's game also will air on SWX, with Riley Corcoran and Krista Redpath on the call.

At a glance (Montana): The Lady Griz bounced back from Thursday's 67-53 home loss to Idaho State with an 85-57 thumping of last-place Weber State at Dahlberg Arena on Saturday. Montana enters the week in fifth place in the Big Sky standings, one spot behind Portland State.

At a glance (Portland State): The Vikings saw their three-game winning streak come to an end on Thursday with a surprising 73-70 home loss to Sacramento State. They rebounded with a 66-54 home win over Northern Arizona on Saturday, which snapped the Lumberjacks' five-game winning streak.

At a glance (Montana State): The Bobcats, whose only league loss came by a point to Idaho in double overtime, extended their winning streak to four games with a pair of home wins last week, 81-52 over Weber State on Thursday and 67-59 over Idaho State on Saturday.

Most recently (Montana): The Lady Griz opened their four-game home stand last week with a 67-53 home loss to Idaho State, just the Bengals' third win against Montana in Missoula. Montana led 34-33 at the break, then went 4 for 23 in the second half as Idaho State pulled away.

The Lady Griz bounced back in a big way on Saturday, putting up 28 points in the first quarter on 5-of-6 shooting from the arc and never trailing in an 85-57 win over Weber State. Montana shot 51.4 percent and forced 22 WSU turnovers.

McKenzie Johnston, Taylor Goligoski and Jamie Pickens all scored 15 points.

Most recently (Portland State): Kennedy Nicholas scored 28 points for Sacramento State as the Hornets shot 46.7 percent and pulled out a 73-70 victory at Portland State on Thursday despite the Vikings hitting 11 3-pointers and all five starters scoring in double figures.

Facing a Northern Arizona team on Saturday that had won five straight games, Portland State outscored the Lumberjacks 21-7 in the second quarter and went on to post a 66-54 victory. The Vikings held NAU to 33.9 percent shooting.

Most recently (Montana State): The Bobcats had little trouble with Weber State on Thursday, racing out to a 38-22 halftime lead, then shooting 53.6 percent in the second half on their way to an 81-52 victory. Tori Martell hit four 3-pointers for the second consecutive game and finished with 16 points.

Montana State improved to 8-1 in league with a 67-59 victory over Idaho State on Saturday. The Bobcats led for the game's final 38 minutes but never by more than 11 points. Big Sky preseason MVP Fallyn Freije had 15 points and eight rebounds.

Montana-Portland State quick hitters:

* Portland State won the teams' first matchup at Viking Pavilion on Jan. 13, 78-65 behind 30 points from Tatiana Streun, who shot 10 for 14 from the field, 10 of 13 from the line.

* Montana shot 22.9 percent in the first half to fall behind by 20 points in the second quarter. It was 39-22 at the half. The Lady Griz twice cut their deficit to four points in the fourth quarter but could never make it a one-possession game.

* McKenzie Johnston had 16 points, seven rebounds and six assists, Madi Schoening 15 points and 10 rebounds in 24 minutes off the bench.

* Portland State has won five of the teams' last seven matchups, but Montana still holds the all-time lead 48-21 and has gone 28-5 against the Vikings in Missoula.

* Fifth-year PSU coach Lynn Kennedy's teams have gone 5-4 against Montana.

Montana-Montana State quick hitters:

* Montana State has gone 8-1 since Christmas, all league games. The Bobcats' only loss during that time was a one-point, double-overtime setback against Idaho.

* The Bobcats won both games in the series last season, 74-52 at Bozeman, 75-71 at Missoula, and have won seven of the teams' last nine matchups.

* Montana leads the all-time series 79-29 and has gone 47-8 in Missoula against Montana State. Five of those eight wins by MSU have come since the 2009-10 season.

* Fifteenth-year Montana State coach Tricia Binford has gone 12-19 against Montana. She is 5-10 against the Lady Griz in Missoula.

Fun with numbers:

* Montana collected its 500th conference victory in Saturday's home win over Weber State. Three hundred eighty-five of those have come as a member of the Big Sky Conference. Montana had 78 in six years in the Mountain West Conference, 37 as a member of the Northwest Women's Basketball League.

* McKenzie Johnston made her 100th career start on Saturday against Weber State.

* Montana held Weber State, which went 0 for 5 from distance, without a 3-pointer made on Saturday. The last time an opponent went without a 3-pointer made: Loyola Marymount went 0 for 9 on Nov. 30, 2013, 202 games ago.

* McKenzie Johnston moved past Kayleigh Valley (2013-16) and into 16th place on the Montana career scoring list last week, with 1,222 points. Next up: 1997-98 Big Sky MVP Skyla Sisco (1994-98), who collected 1,238 points.

* Johnston holds steady on the career assists list in seventh place with 449, still 26 behind Kelly Pilcher (1990-94).

* Montana's loss to Idaho State on Thursday was its first (9-1) this season when leading at the half and its first (9-1) when committing fewer turnovers than its opponent.

Storylines:

* Big week ahead: With a schedule that is back-loaded with road games and a chance this week to play two teams ahead of it in the standings at Dahlberg Arena, one it lost to earlier this month, the other in first place, Montana has a big opportunity ahead of it in the coming days.

First up is Portland State, a team Montana lost to on the road last season before returning home for a thrilling 73-70 overtime victory behind 25 points and 18 rebounds from Jace Henderson, a game in which the Lady Griz shot 44.3 percent against a zone that had caused it problems in the first matchup.

Then comes Montana State, the rare matchup when both teams don't have the entire week off before squaring off on Saturday.

The roles will flip-flop next month. Montana State will host Portland State on Thursday, Feb. 20, before hosting Montana two days later. That will be the Lady Griz' only game of the week.

"This is a big week. Obviously getting a second shot at Portland State before we've seen the Cats is a little different," said Schweyen.

"Usually you have all week to prepare for the Cats, and everything is geared toward that. I'm not so sure having another game in the same week can't be looked at as a good thing to kind of take the hype off it and make it more normal."

* Montana seeking breakthrough: The Lady Griz are 2-4 in their last six games, and it has all come down to shooting. In its four losses, to Northern Colorado, Portland State, Idaho and Idaho State, Montana has shot just 30.4 percent and averaged 56.8 points.

In their two wins during that stretch, over Eastern Washington and Weber State, the Lady Griz have looked unstoppable, averaging 88.5 points on 50.4 percent shooting.

Montana State is the Big Sky's second-best defensive team, statistically speaking, Portland State is in the top five.

"The games we've lost we've been in the 50s," said Schweyen, whose team is averaging 56.8 points this season in its losses, 77.5 in its wins.

"We've proven to not be very good when we don't score, because we have a hard time holding other teams down in the 50s, so we need to do a good job executing offensively and then we've got to get some stops."

* Lady Griz seeking to knock off Vikings: Montana has played just three games since facing Portland State on the road on Monday, Jan. 13, so the Vikings should be easy for the Lady Griz to recall.

PSU is one of the most straightforward teams to prepare for -- an opponent knows what it is going to get -- and one of the hardest to go up against because of a zone that can be confounding.

"You know what you're going to get against them. Of all your games, it's the one sure thing. You're going to get zoned for 40 minutes," said Schweyen. "You know what they are going to do. Their rules are their rules.

"They leave certain things open, but can you execute well enough? Can your bigs make shots? Can you get behind it a little bit?"

Montana ended up shooting 28.0 percent in its loss at Portland State, but there is 28 percent shooting when you're forced into taking bad shots and 28 percent shooting when you believe you're getting the right shots and you're just missing them. The latter was the case in the first meeting.

Montana's bigs went just 5 for 25, with most of those misses coming with PSU senior center Jordan Stotler patrolling the paint. She would finish with six blocks to go along with her 12 points, nine rebounds and eight assists. She leads the Big Sky in blocks (3.7/g).

"Our bigs had a chance to have huge games," said Schweyen. "Anytime you lose, you go back and ask, did we get the type of shots we wanted? I look back at it and think those were shots we should have made.

"If each of those girls makes two more of those, we're in a different game down the stretch."

Trailing 39-22 at the half, Montana would pull within eight, 52-44, by the end of the third quarter and twice made it a four-point game late in the fourth. Both times Portland State answered to extend its lead back to six.

* Montana gets its first shot at the preseason favorite: With four starters back, Montana State was picked atop both the media and coaches' preseason polls.

The Bobcats have backed it up with a solid run through a difficult nonconference schedule -- MSU lost at South Dakota State and Minnesota, at home to Gonzaga, then in Puerto Rico to Wichita State and Texas A&M -- and a one-loss start to league.

Of the eight players who saw action when Montana State won the teams' last matchup, 75-71 in Missoula last February, seven are back.

And none leads the team in scoring this season. That would be senior forward Fallyn Freije (12.7/g), in her lone season competing for the Bobcats after transferring from North Dakota, and freshman guard Darian White, the Idaho Gatorade Player of the Year at Mountain View High in Boise last season.

White has started all 18 games and is playing a team-high 29.7 minutes per game. She isn't the 3-point threat that senior guard Oliana Squires is -- White has gone just 7 for 28 -- but she is shooting 84.5 percent at the line and 41.8 percent from the field and is grabbing nearly five boards per game. She also leads the Big Sky in steals (2.4/g).

"They have lots of familiar names and some players who have been there forever. The only youth they have that plays a lot is at the point, and she's gotten a ton of minutes by now," said Schweyen.

The Bobcats come in with some attractive numbers. They are averaging 73.5 points per game, third best in the Big Sky, while allowing 61.3, the second-lowest total in the league. That scoring margin of +12.2 is by far the best in the conference.

"They've been tough to score on this year. They do a variety of things defensively. We've got to make shots," said Schweyen.

"And then we've got to play their personnel accordingly on the defensive end. They have good balance. There is no one person to key on with them."

* Freije, again, but in another uniform: Montana State senior Fallyn Freije transferred to MSU from North Dakota after the 2017-18 season. The Big Sky preseason MVP went up against Montana six times as a Fighting Hawk and went 4-2.

She had a 13-point, 11-rebound double-double in North Dakota's win in Grand Forks in 2016-17, a 19-point, 10-rebound double-double in Montana's 53-51 home win in 2017-18, when Taylor Goligoski played hero and won it with an elbow jumper in the final seconds.

Her six-game averages against Montana: 9.7 points, 6.7 rebounds.

Game notes:

* In Montana's 85-57 home win over Weber State on Saturday, six players took between eight and 11 shots in a nice display of balanced shooting.

* Of the three players who scored 15 points in that game, McKenzie Johnston went 7 for 10, Jamie Pickens 7 for 11, Taylor Goligoski 6 for 11.

* Montana had 14 steals, which matched a season high, as part of Weber State's 22 turnovers on Saturday. That was the most the Lady Griz have forced this season against a Division I opponent.

* Dating back to last season, Montana is 22-7 when shooting 40 percent or better, 2-17 when shooting below 40 percent.

* Portland State (.789) and Montana (.754) are the two best free throw shooting teams in the Big Sky. The Vikings also top the league in 3-point shooting (.368).

* Montana State leads the Big Sky in rebounding margin (+7.0).

* Thursday will be a matchup of two of the most efficient point guards in the Big Sky. Montana's McKenzie Johnston (2.1) ranks second in the Big Sky in assist-to-turnover ratio, Portland State's Kylie Jimenez (2.0) is third. Johnston ranks 51st nationally.

* Montana (1.22) ranks 22nd in the nation in assist-to-turnover ratio, with just one person not holding at least a 1.0 ratio.

* Portland State (5-4) and Montana State (5-2) are both above .500 this season in true road games. Montana is 6-4 at home.

* Taylor Goligoski followed up a 4-for-22 stretch through the team's previous three games with her 6-for-11 effort on Saturday against Weber State. She went 3 for 4 from 3-point range against the Wildcats.

* McKenzie Johnston was able to play just 22 minutes on Saturday because of Montana's lead. It was the fewest minutes she's played in a game since the fifth game of her freshman year, 20 minutes at home against Utah State. She still had the team's top efficiency rating of +18.

* After scoring just 10 points on 3-of-14 shooting against Eastern Washington and Portland State, Emma Stockholm has reached double figures in Montana's last three games.

* Madi Schoening has started the last three games in place of Gabi Harrington, who started the season's first 15 games.

Around the Big Sky Conference:

* Idaho remained even with Montana State in the loss column at 7-1 with 71-56 road win at Southern Utah on Monday night. The Vandals limited the Thunderbirds to 30.0 percent shooting, 23.3 in the second half.

* Also on Monday, Northern Colorado won at home over Eastern Washington, 63-42, and Northern Arizona rebounded from Saturday's loss at Portland State to win 85-65 at Sacramento State. NAU had one player with 27 points, two more with 25.

* Thursday's schedule: PSU at UM, UNC at ISU, SUU at WSU

* Game to monitor: Northern Colorado at Idaho State, 7 p.m. -- The Bears are 4-4 in league, the Bengals 4-5. Both are the mid-pack mix with Montana, each holding a head-to-head victory over the Lady Griz.

* Saturday's schedule: MSU at UM, SUU at ISU, UNC at WSU, SAC at EWU, NAU at UI

* Game to monitor: Northern Arizona at Idaho, 3 p.m. (MT) -- The Lumberjacks have won six of seven, the Vandals five in a row.

Upcoming: A split week for Montana, with a mid-day game at Eastern Washington on Thursday, a home game against Idaho on Saturday.

Lady Griz close out home stand with Vikings, Bobcats

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Players Mentioned

Taylor Goligoski

Gabi Harrington

Jace Henderson

McKenzie Johnston

Jamie Pickens

Madi Schoening

Emma Stockholm

Kayleigh Valley

University of Montana Athletics