First-year orientation with Lauren Mills

There is a river that runs through it. Hobart, that is. The River Derwent. Standing sentinel over the city is Mount Wellington, a popular spot with hiking paths and fire trails.

The capital of Tasmania, the island state off the southeast coast of Australia, isn't Missoula's sister city, but the similarities aren't lost on Lady Griz junior Lauren Mills.

"In a way, it reminds me of home a little bit," she says.

That Hobart is a docking spot for ships that supply the research stations of Antarctica -- Antarctica! -- tells you how far from home she truly is.

But reminders of home aren't why she's here, after two and a half seasons at Iowa State. Though maybe they are.

"We are a big family who loves spending time together. Taking care of each other is important to us," says her mom, Angela, a real-estate agent who formerly worked for Basketball Tasmania.

Last spring, while back home, she had plenty of suitors after placing her name in the NCAA transfer portal. Not surprising for a 6-foot-2 player with glowing references from the Cyclones.

"She is an amazing young lady who was a great part of our program, someone who added a lot to what we are about," says Iowa State coach Bill Fennelly, who three months ago was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in Women's Basketball.

That Fennelly has a team ranked as high as No. 14 in the preseason national polls is why Mills is here, in Missoula. The Cyclones are loaded. Again.

They didn't push for Mills to leave, to free up a scholarship. There were tears all around when the news spread. But they understood when she brought up the idea of transferring.

"She just really, really wanted to find a place she could play. She was going to have a hard time getting playing time here with our roster," says Fennelly. "It was very amicable, the way you want it to be."

She chose Iowa State without ever having visited Ames. She chose Iowa State without ever having visited the United States. When you know, you know.

It was never about the location as much as it was about the people.

"I'm a big relationship person. I got along with the coaches, and I liked their team mission and what they were about," she says. "Team culture is big for me."

It goes back to family. Even though Ames and Hobart are worlds apart, it reminded her of home, where family takes care of one another.

Her grandparents were the first to land in Tasmania, her grandfather, Angela's dad, recruited there from Melbourne to be an import player for the state's football (Aussie rules) team.

They loved it and never left.

"He played for a lot of years. I look up to what he's accomplished in his life. If I could do half of that, I'd be happy," says Lauren.

He would become more than a grandfather for Lauren. He's the one who took her camping and taught her to fish. He's the one who was at so many of her games, the one who shared his experiences so she could keep improving.

"If I am her female rock, my father is her male rock," says Angela. "He played a huge male role in her growing up when her own father moved away when she was four years old.

"He supported her not only in sport but in life, generally being there for the family unit. He has been and still is a steady influence in her life. If he could, he'd be in America watching her play."

So when Lady Griz coach Mike Petrino and his assistants gave Mills a virtual tour of campus last spring, showing her the Washington-Grizzly Champions Center, Dahlberg Arena, the team's locker room, they hoped they were hitting the right buttons.

They were but not in the way they imagined. Mills wasn't going to be swayed by the number of squat racks or size of each player's locker. She knows the value of family and what it can mean.

"What stuck out to me was all the coaches reached out individually to me and wanted to form that connection," she says.

"I remember the first time I talked to Coach (Jordan) Sullivan. We talked for over an hour, and we didn't necessarily talk about basketball. That was the same with all the coaches. They really value relationships."

She grew up across the river from Hobart, four houses away from the beach, a couple free kicks away from a stadium that on occasion hosted Australian Football League games that brought out friends they never knew they had, who had eyes on the free parking of their driveway.

Her mom's job with Basketball Tasmania gave Mills an in, but it was never all basketball, all the time.

"In her offseason, she was encouraged to play other sports. It's good for the muscles and good for the soul," says her mom.

She played netball, water polo, hockey. "I encouraged both my girls to seek new experiences, but if they found something they loved, they should pursue it. Lauren loved basketball.

"My role enabled her to meet some amazing people, with our Australian athletes and imports from America, positive role models we were truly blessed to have in our lives."

Basketball became a year-round obsession, with that calendar centered on the Australian state games.

Tasmania, with its population of a little more than 500,000, was a mid-major among the power states of the mainland.

The team everyone wanted to beat: Victoria, which had Melbourne, a city of nearly five million.

"We'd have some competitive games, but we wouldn't be winning as much as the other states," Mills says.

"We wanted to make the other team work hard if they wanted to beat us. If you're going to score on me, you're going to have to work really bloody hard to do it and really earn it."

One of her friends and teammates was Josie Greenwood, who, like her brother, would go on to play at New Mexico.

Greenwood would come home for the summer, at least New Mexico's summer, meet up with Mills for some hoops and start talking about being a Lobo and life in the U.S.

"I'd ask her so many questions. The more I talked to her about the college experience, the more I felt it was something I wanted to do," says Mills.

Her mom? All she had were questions.

"Was she ready for this next step? Who would help her if something went wrong? Would the team accept her? Would they teach her to become stronger? Would they build her character into a young lady the way I would? Would she find her people? So many questions!" Angela says.

What forced college programs to take notice was Mills' showing with her state team at the Australian Championships in Bendigo in February 2017.

"Then the scouts came calling. That's when I knew my daughter might end up in the U.S.A. For a mum, that is a long way away, but I knew in my heart that this was where she needed to be," says Angela.

"I've always believed you need to raise your child to fly. Well, she certainly flew."

But the timing was off. Most players who would be freshmen in 2017-18 had sealed the deal during the NCAA's early signing period a few months earlier. She had even missed the deadline to take the SAT.

She was behind in the process.

Not knowing what might come her way, if anything, Mills enrolled at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, just in case, to keep her options open. Her clock, as the NCAA defined it, had begun.

On the side, she kept training, kept playing on her teams. Iowa State became one of her finalists. So did Oklahoma and TCU.

The Cyclones offered her without ever meeting her in person or having her take a visit to Ames.

"It was very rare, but we had a lot of conversations with her and decided it was worth the gamble to bring her over, and it was," says Fennelly. "No regrets at all."

She would be a mid-year addition, arriving in Ames on Dec. 26 after leaving Hobart on a beautiful summer day.

She thought she would be fine wearing what she had on. Assistant coach Latoja Schaben, who picked her up at the airport, handed her a heavy winter coat. Trust me.

Ames was enduring another blizzard.

"When she walked out into the snow, she nearly died," says her mom. "She had to learn how to walk in snow. She says she found every spot of ice to slip on and always found ways to do this in public."

And people drive with snow on the ground, defying death? "It made me nervous to be in a car when someone else was driving on it," Mills says. "It was a new experience but that was something I wanted to do."

She knew why two days later, when Iowa State hosted Kansas and more than 9,700 fans showed up at Hilton Coliseum for the Cyclones' overtime win.

"It was crazy, something I'll never forget," she says. "I was blown away by the atmosphere and physicality of the game. I loved being part of it and being able to soak it all in."

But Mills has her grandfather's blood. She's a competitor, just like he supplemented his football playing with cricket and golf. He wanted to be not just around the action but right in the middle of it.

So did she. After sitting out the back half of her first year, she played in nine games as a redshirt freshman, in 2018-19, just four last season, totaling seven points and two rebounds.

She was straddling a fine line. She was where she wanted to be, playing for coaches she loved and alongside teammates she would do anything for, but she wanted to feel more part of the team's success beyond practicing every day against those who would go to battle.

But at what cost? Could she find what she had at Iowa State and complement it with some game-time minutes?

"Just the feeling that I was part of impacting a game and being able to play," she says. "Everything else was great."

Even her mom loved where she was. "She was with positive role models, with great people around her, and her environment was safe," says Angela.

Mills' final game in a Cyclone uniform was Iowa State's 57-56 win over No. 2-ranked Baylor on March 8 in Ames in front of a crowd of 10,068 that snapped the Bears' 56-game Big 12 winning streak.

Mills: DNP.

Not long after, the team was in Kansas City for the start of the Big 12 tournament, at the arena preparing for its 60-minute practice time, when the coaches came in. The tournament was off.

Life as everyone knew it -- March Madness, games, the freedom to go and do whatever a person wanted -- was on hold. The coronavirus was here.

"Scary. A parent's worst nightmare," Angela says, of having a child nowhere near home when every instinct in her body wanted her two daughters close by. "My baby was on the other side of the world with an insane virus, and I could not help her.

"We managed to get her home just prior to our borders closing."

That her daughter wanted to transfer was enough to try to wrap her mind around. More: Her daughter wanted to return to the U.S., a place where the virus showed no signs of letting up as March and April turned to June and July.

Tasmania? It got hit with an early wave, with cases in the hundreds, then the state all but eliminated the virus by shutting down its border. The U.S.? It had case numbers in the millions, deaths in the tens and then hundreds of thousands.

"How do I send my daughter back whilst this is going on? We could only rely on what we saw on the news," she says.

"As a parent, she was not going back. Ever. But this is not my life. It is hers and discussions were had. I told myself to breathe."

Mills thought she had heard from every program in America back in 2017. Now a 6-foot-2 player (rare) was leaving a top-25 program (rarer still).

"When my name went into the portal, it escalated a bit more. I had a higher volume than when I was recruited as a freshman," she says.

Bill Fennelly, defined: He didn't just tell Mills good luck, have a nice life, thanks for your time. He felt ownership, a responsibility, as he does with all his players.

"We felt we were part of the reason she came from Australia to the States. Even though she was leaving, we just wanted to help her find a place that we were comfortable with," he says.

Note the we. What we were comfortable with.

As she did before, she had to do it from a distance. She replied to every school that reached out to her, from NAIA to Division I, ultimately narrowing her list to two: Montana and a school on the East Coast.

Why the Lady Griz? Their communications helped. So did the approval of Fennelly and his staff, which includes his son Billy, who years ago became friends with Petrino.

"She wanted to find a place like Ames, where she would be comfortable and well taken care of, a place that appreciates the university and women's basketball," Bill Fennelly says.

"When Coach Petrino's staff showed interest, it was a no-brainer. We knew the kind of people that are there. It was really a perfect situation for her. We were very, very happy that it worked out."

Imagine Petrino back in April. He'd been appointed interim head coach. He inherited a roster that he politely called fluid. In other words, he didn't know what he'd have from those who played last season, who was in, who was out.

So he started seeking out reinforcements.

He saw Mills in the portal. He had an in at Iowa State. He reached out. They raved about her character and work ethic. He contacted her. She was interested.

"They definitely did their homework. Every time we talked, she had her list of questions. She is a very mature, independent person," says Petrino.

Mills would be his first commit. She knew it before he did, jotting down on her notepad I'M GOING TO COMMIT during one call and showing it to her mom.

"When she showed me the pad, we smiled at each other and I nodded," Angela says. "We did not need words."

"I could tell the way they talked about relationships and the future of the team that they really cared about each player, not just as a basketball player but as a person," Mills says.

"That was something I wanted to be a part of."

At the time she committed, Mills, by NCAA rules, had two strikes against her. She would have to sit out a year because of the transfer, and because her clock started when she enrolled at the University of Tasmania, she would then only have one season of eligibility to play.

Jean Gee, Montana's Senior Associate AD for student affairs and compliance, got after it and sought a pair of waivers.

Mills was granted both. She can play immediately and she has two years of eligibility remaining.

She arrived in August after having taken her second leap of faith. She didn't visit Iowa State. She didn't visit Montana. She just went all in on both.

"I hadn't visited either of the schools I've been to, which people find quite funny," she says. "I just had faith it was the place to be. I was right."

There was an early indication that Petrino had made the right decision to offer Mills. On the first Zoom call with the team after she signed, Mills joined right in. And fit right in.

When someone said something about her Australian accent, she gave everyone a lesson on the American accent. "Our kids just lit up," Petrino says.

"She has a motherly feel. She's always helping everyone out, always wanting to know what else she can do, on and off the court."

The question, then, becomes this: Is Lauren Mills too nice? Too nice for someone who is 6-foot-2 and could send you into the first row of bleachers without much effort at all?

"She's Australian nice for sure," says Fennelly.

Is there such thing as Australian nasty? Can she go from motherly to one bad mother?

"She started on the nice end. Now she's working her way through. Now she's in the middle. We have to get her to here," assistant coach Jordan Sullivan says, extending her hand to Kenzie De Boer Territory, formerly known as Mandy Morales Territory.

Tasked with getting Mills there is assistant coach Nate Covill, who knows a little something about using his body to take away an opponent's will to compete, to continue to fight. It's how he rolled.

I'm here all game long. And I'm not going anywhere.

"We've had that conversation. There are certain times when she really embraces her size," he says. "Then there are times she forgets she can really put the hammer down on somebody.

"I tell her, you're a sweetheart 90 percent of the time. We need you to be a little nasty 10 percent of the time, and that's 100 percent of your time on the court. That's a work in progress, but she's making steps."

It puts Mills in a tough spot. Put her in a game against an actual opponent and she'll go full-on destruction without any remorse. But against a teammate?

It's one of the things she doesn't have the film to prove. You just have to take her word for it.

"On the court I'm working on being a little more aggressive," she says. "But it's hard when you're playing against your teammates.

"I'm the type of person, when I get in games I get protective of my team. Playing like that against my teammates feels a little strange to me. That's what I'm working on at the moment."

Call her the thunder to 6-foot-2 Abby Anderson's lightning. Anderson loves using her quickness and length in the post to score and block shots. Her footwork reveals her dancer's past.

Mills? "She offers something different," says Covill. "Abby is more of a shot-blocker, a change-your-shot person. Lauren is more like myself, a physical presence in the paint.

"Instead of altering things when the ball gets in the paint, we're going to keep people out of the paint. Let's keep you in the paint and make sure people know you're there."

But he also doesn't want Mills to lose those qualities that make her so special. If he pushes her just right, nothing will have to be sacrificed. The Lady Griz can have Mills both ways, nice with a touch of nasty.

"Every day she has a smile on her face and comes to get better," Covill says. "She's an amazing young lady who is personable, down to earth and wants to be good.

"She is very coachable. When you have someone looking you in the eye when you're giving them feedback, whether it's critical or praise, that's awesome, and she does that. That says a lot about her."

To Mills' credit, she knows who she is and who she isn't, unlike so many players in post bodies who love hanging out at the 3-point line, fulfilling their fantasy of being a shooting guard with a green light.

There isn't a lot of glory in doing the dirty work down low, but there is a field-goal percentage north of 50 percent for those willing to do it.

That's not to say Mills doesn't dream the dream. So what would happen if she was given a ball and asked to shoot 20 times from the arc?

"I don't practice them that much, but I'm not bad," she says. "If I shot 20, I'd say I'd give myself over 10. At least 10."

Uh-oh, another big with confidence from the arc. That can't be good.

"Everybody loves to get out there and get their shot at it. If, down the road, that's something the coaches would want me to do, I'd be happy to do it," she says.

"For now, I'm just focused on being a strong presence and being a true post player."

Whew.

She doesn't know what she's getting herself into at Montana, but that's true of most of the team's eight newcomers, who don't know what basketball in the Big Sky Conference is like.

All she has and all she knows is what she has in front of her every day at practice.

"It's been great. We get pretty into it," she says. "The girls are pretty competitive. I like being part of that."

At some point the games will arrive and decisions will have to be made. There are 200 minutes to be played, never by more than five players at a time on the court, 200 minutes to be doled out.

"The coaches are going to have a really hard job. It's a tough situation but the best one to be in, when you have a whole team that puts everything on the line and competes every practice," Mills says.

What does the future, at least the next two seasons on the court, hold for Mills? Not even the coaches can predict that, not until they see how she produces in games.

Whether she starts out playing two minutes or 12 or 22 or 32, she won't change.

"It is the commitment," says her mom. "Once she commits to a team, coaches, a community, her school work, she will give it her all. That's how she lives her life.

"If she feels her teammates and coaches have her back, she will go to work. You can push and encourage, but it needs to be a two-way street. Teamwork is key for her. The opportunity to build together is what excites her."

A river runs through it, both there and here, and that means something.

"Lauren tells me she has found her home," says her mom. "Her people."

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