Of Lady Griz, resiliency and comebacks

A little before 8 p.m. on Friday night, as Montana was playing at Northern Colorado, a visitor to ESPN.com could have checked the score and noticed the site had it as a 99.4 percent probability that the Bears were on their way to a win.

In other words, if the teams were in that same situation 200 times -- late in the third quarter, the margin at 19, the home team in the lead -- the Lady Griz would win just once. Friday night was that once.

Not that anybody would have believed it at the time, which is why it was a 1-in-200 chance.

After Alecia Whyte made one of two free throws with 1:24 left in the third quarter, Northern Colorado led 52-33.

For as far back as there are box scores and, more important, associated play-by-plays to check on such things, from the start of the 1998-99 season to now, the largest deficit Montana had ever overcome on the road and won was 18, which Robin Selvig's teams did twice.

There was the game at Montana State in 2010-11, when the Lady Griz flipped a 27-9 first-half deficit into a 56-55 win. Before that, a 38-20 deficit early in the second half at Portland in 2005-06 became a 68-65 overtime victory.

Neither of those teams faced the time crunch that Montana did on Friday night.

Eleven minutes, 19 points down for a team that was averaging a mere 0.66 points per possession? That 99.4 percent didn't feel high enough.

"We had a pretty rough start. We couldn't defend the dribble, those sorts of things," said senior Madi Schoening, who was on the Lady Griz team that most recently overcame such a deficit.

Montana trailed Northern Arizona by 21 midway through the third quarter on Dec. 28, 2017, in Missoula. The Lady Griz would rally to win that game 70-62 in overtime.

But that was at home, with a boisterous Dahlberg Arena crowd doing its thing. This was Greeley, on the road, in a mostly empty facility. One team had all the energy, all the momentum, one team had neither.

Until those things went from one bench to the other in a span of less than 23 seconds of clock time at the end of the third quarter.

Two Kyndall Keller free throws. A steal and layup by Jordyn Schweyen. A short jumper by Karsen Murphy. All coming after Carmen Gfeller had hit a seeming innocent jumper that made it 52-35.

Murphy's basket, coming off a Gfeller steal at midcourt, had everyone looking up at the scoreboard. Was the lead really down to just 11? Indeed it was: 52-41. It was faint, but there was a pulse.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

"We just needed someone to step up and give a little spark," said Schoening. "It was absolutely huge getting Jordyn's and Karsen's buckets right at the end to kind of put them on their heels. It wasn't until then that I felt we got out of that slump.

"It felt like they were the ones attacking to that point. Then we had some hustle plays that just aren't taught. They are just straight heart and guts. The team just rallied behind that, and that kind of followed through the rest of the fourth quarter."

ESPN's calculator was not impressed. Northern Colorado's win probability entering the fourth quarter still stood at 94.1 percent.

The machine hadn't taken into consideration that the Bears might go 1 for 17 in the fourth quarter. Or that after going 1 for 13 from 3-point range, the Lady Griz might hit three of five in the final period. Or might make history by going 18 for 18 from the line, six of which came in the fourth quarter.

That's why they play the games -- right? -- to the final horn and not call them early, when it looks like one team is on its way to a (probable) victory. That's how sports work.

"We never looked up and said, wow, we're still down by this much," said Schoening. "We just kept chipping away and playing the defense we know how to play.

"Shots started falling for us, and we rode that high through the fourth quarter."

After Abby Anderson hit a turnaround in the lane to make it 53-50, ESPN started budging. Okay, okay, it seemed to acknowledge, we'll knock it down to 76.1 percent, but we're not completely sold. We'll need to see more.

When Hannah Simetal hit a 3-pointer with five minutes left to make it 56-50, ESPN jumped it back up to 88.5 percent.

With neither team scoring the next two minutes and the clock going under three minutes, the probability kept tilting more and more in Northern Colorado's favor, pushing back up to 95.5 percent after a Lady Griz miss with 2:57 to go.

But Anderson grabbed the offensive rebound, and the ball made its way to Schoening at the top of the key. She was 0 for 5 shooting on the day, just 2 for 17 from 3-point range for the season.

Mathematics would have told you to bet against her making it. She didn't miss. Montana was back within three, 56-53.

"I knew I hadn't been shooting well, so I'd been doing a lot of dribble and kick, those sorts of things," said Schoening. "That one felt right. I was right into rhythm. I let it go. I didn't really think twice about it."

What's striking about the fourth quarter is what Northern Colorado didn't do. Alisha Davis, who could have made everything all right by either scoring or getting to the line, took one shot in the final 13 minutes. The Bears took nearly half of their shots in the fourth quarter (8 of 17) from the arc.

It's how they had built their lead in the first place. It's where they would shoot themselves out of it against a zone defense that Montana employed in the second half.

"Switching to the zone kind of put us in our element. We were able to focus more on the offensive end because defense was coming so naturally for us," said Schoening.

After Simetal's 3-pointer midway through the fourth, UNC's only basket of the period, the Bears would not score again. Even though Montana was just 5 for 16 over the final 10 minutes, it was enough.

Gfeller tied it at 56-56 with a nonchalant 3-pointer from the corner, in front of Montana's bench, after she had tracked down a long rebound. I'm here. I have the ball in my hands. I'm open. I can make this shot. Why wouldn't I let it fly?

Northern Colorado, wondering what had become of its lead and easy path to victory, kept missing, which set up Keller, who played every minute of the fourth quarter as a freshman, to hit what would be the game-winner, a floater in the lane with 36 seconds left.

Even before Keller's shot, ESPN had gotten on board. As Keller drove from the left wing in a tie game, it had Montana at a 60 percent probability of winning. Even the machines know not to doubt Keller in that situation.

She hit two free throws in the final seconds for the game's final margin. Then it was off to the locker room.

"It was loud," said Schoening. "We were pumped, we were screaming, high-fiving. It was just cool.

"A couple of the girls kept saying, and even I was feeling it, we were going to win today even though we were down by that much. I just felt like we were going to start playing our game. It just took us a little longer than we wanted, but we ended up getting there. We ended up finding the groove."

University of Montana Athletics

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Abby Anderson

Carmen Gfeller

Kyndall Keller

Karsen Murphy

Madi Schoening

Jordyn Schweyen

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