No rest for the Lady Griz, Redhawks up next

The Montana women's basketball team, which played No. 25 Gonzaga to seven points on the road on Sunday, concludes its road trip with a game at Seattle on Tuesday afternoon.

The Lady Griz (1-2) and Redhawks (2-3) will tip off at 3 p.m. (MT) at SU's Redhawk Center.

Coverage: Watch the game on the WAC Digital Network or listen to Voice of the Lady Griz Shawn Tiemann on KMPT (99.7 FM/930 AM) or 930kmpt.com.

At a glance (Montana): The Lady Griz dropped to 1-2 with a 58-51 loss at No. 25 Gonzaga on Sunday afternoon, Montana's closest result against a ranked opponent since knocking off No. 24 Utah in 2004.

Montana opened the season with an 81-74 setback at Utah State before picking up its first win of the year with an 86-72 home victory over North Dakota last Monday.

The team's home and Big Sky Conference games against Southern Utah were canceled because of COVID-19 issues within the Thunderbird program.

Carmen Gfeller is averaging 19.7 points on 57.1 percent shooting for the Lady Griz. Sophia Stiles is averaging 13.7 points, 6.3 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 4.3 steals.

At a glance (Seattle): The Redhawks, who will have the advantage not only of playing at home on Tuesday but also of being off since Thursday's home win over Northwest University, are 2-3.

Seattle, which doesn't have a senior on its roster, has had a lopsided loss at Oregon, 116-51, a one-sided win over Northwest, 106-39, and three competitive games against Portland and Utah State.

The Redhawks lost by 12 twice to the Pilots, last season's West Coast Conference tournament champions, once at home, once on the road, and defeated Utah State in Seattle, 75-72 in overtime.

In Thursday's 67-point home victory, the Redhawks went 15 for 32 from the arc.

Seattle, which went 13-16 last season, 6-9 in league, was picked fifth out of nine teams in the WAC preseason poll.

Junior guard McKenzi Williams, who put up 20 on Oregon, leads the team at 15.4 points per game. She has gotten to the line 39 times in five games, where she is shooting 87.2 percent.

Junior Courtney Murphy, the team's leading returning scorer from last season, was voted second-team preseason All-WAC.

The matchup:

* Seattle leads the all-time series with Montana 5-4 and has won the teams' last three matchups, each by 14 points or more.

* The Redhawks are one of just five programs to have played a minimum of nine games against the Lady Griz and have a winning record. The others: Oregon, Oregon State, Wyoming and Flathead Valley Community College.

* The teams have split their four meetings in Seattle, with Montana winning in 1981 and 2014, the Redhawks in 1979 and 2016.

* The teams were both members of the Northwest Women's Basketball League in 1979-80. Montana competed in the Mountain Division, Seattle in the Coast Division.

* In the teams' most recent game in Seattle, in December 2016, Montana shot 26.8 percent and turned the ball over 19 times to lose 60-44 despite leading by two at the half.

* In the teams' most recent game, played in Missoula in December 2017, the Redhawks had no trouble with the Lady Griz School Day crowd of 7,018. They opened the fourth quarter on a 14-0 run to turn a two-point deficit into a 12-point lead and went on to win 78-64.

Most recently (Montana): The Lady Griz lost for the 14th straight time against a ranked opponent, falling 58-51 at No. 25 Gonzaga on Sunday.

The seven-point margin was closer than any of those previous 13 games, just ahead of Montana's 55-47 loss to UCLA, also in Spokane, in the first round of the 2011 NCAA tournament.

Montana led for just 44 seconds early in the first quarter but hung around, enough that a 14-2 run spanning the end of the third quarter and start of the fourth cut a 46-32 deficit to 48-46.

Montana had two 3-point shots that would have given the Lady Griz the lead, but they both missed. A 3-pointer by Gonzaga's Kayleigh Truong at the 2:48 mark made it 51-46. It was the shot of the game.

Sophia Stiles had 15 points on 6-of-11 shooting, Carmen Gfeller added 12, and Madi Schoening approached a double-double with nine points and nine boards.

Montana limited Gonzaga to 31.1 percent shooting, the Bulldogs' lowest percentage since shooting 31.0 percent against Colorado State in November 2018.

Most recently (Seattle): After falling to Portland for the second time this season by 12 points, the Redhawks bounced back with a 106-39 victory over Northwest on Thursday.

Thirteen Redhawks scored and Seattle set a Division I program record for points. (Seattle has had 16 players take the court in at least two games this season.)

Seattle led 32-13 after the first quarter, 59-21 at the half. Four players hit multiple 3-pointers, nine connected at least once from the arc.

Summary: It will be more than just Seattle that Montana will be challenged by on Tuesday. After playing a physical, competitive game against Gonzaga on Sunday afternoon, the Lady Griz spent Monday on a bus covering the 280 miles between the two cities.

Montana will face a rested team that has won a dozen games at home since the start of last season. One of those came against Utah State earlier this month, a team that defeated Montana in November.

"Anytime you play a second game on the road and have to travel in between, it brings challenges," said first-year coach Mike Petrino. "Seattle will he rested and ready.

"We have to learn and move on from Sunday and prepare quickly for a team that always plays tough at home. They have quickness on the perimeter and size inside. They like to push the ball in transition and spread you out in the half court."

Seattle is allowing more than 77 points per game but also scoring 74, which means Tuesday's game should look more like Montana's contests against Utah State and North Dakota than Sunday's grinder against Gonzaga.

The key may come at the 3-point line. Will this be the Seattle team that went 15 for 32 from the arc against Northwest or the team that went 18 for 84 (.214) its first four games of the season?

Game notes:

* Seattle coach Suzy Barcomb is in her fifth season leading the Redhawks. She is 2-0 against Montana, with 16- and 14-point victories.

* Half of Barcomb's roster -- eight of 16 players -- is from the state of Washington. She also has three players from Australia. Montana has two, transfers Nyah Morris-Nelson and Lauren Mills.

* In Seattle's 116-51 loss at Oregon, the Redhawks, who went 2 for 21 from the arc, trailed 71-25 at the half.

* In Seattle's lone Division I win, over Utah State, the Redhawks trailed by five with 22 seconds left in regulation, but a pair of 3-pointers sent the game to overtime, where Seattle overcame a four-point deficit to win 75-72.

* Seattle was picked fifth in the WAC preseason poll, behind Cal Baptist, Utah Valley, Texas-Rio Grande Valley and New Mexico State.

* Montana is scheduled to host Utah Valley next Monday in Missoula in the Lady Griz' final game before Christmas.

* The 58 points allowed on Sunday against Gonzaga were the fewest given up by the Lady Griz against a ranked team since falling 55-47 to No. 8/9 UCLA in the NCAA tournament in 2011.

* Montana's previous six ranked opponents each scored 70 or more points.

* The team Montana limited to 31.1 percent shooting on its home court on Sunday shot 52.7 percent against then No. 1 South Carolina last month and 55.0 percent against Wyoming last week.

* Montana held Jill Townsend, last year's WCC Player of the Year and one of 50 players on the watch list for this year's Naismith Trophy, to nine points and seven shots.

* Montana leads the Big Sky in field goal percentage at 43.3 percent and ranks second in scoring, behind Northern Arizona, at 70.3.

* Montana has both scored and allowed 211 points this season.

* Carmen Gfeller is tied for the lead in the Big Sky in scoring (19.7/g), Sophia Stiles leads in steals (4.3/g), Abby Anderson leads in blocked shots (2.3/g).

Upcoming: Montana will close out its pre-Christmas schedule with a home game against Utah Valley next Monday at 2 p.m.

The Wolverines, who are 2-0 with wins over Southern Utah and William Jessup, are scheduled to play at BYU on Tuesday and at Southern Utah on Friday.

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Players Mentioned

Abby Anderson

Carmen Gfeller

Lauren Mills

Nyah Morris-Nelson

Madi Schoening

Sophia Stiles

University of Montana Athletics