A new era begins for the Lady Griz

Let's call them what they are: the odd couple of Lady Griz basketball.

He's new here, relatively speaking, in a program where years have long been measured in decades, wins counted by the hundreds. It's just been easier that way, simpler to encapsulate.

But most of that success is receding in the rearview mirror, getting more distant by the day, threatening to become an era of the past with no connection to the present.

From the early 80s to as recently as 2015, no four-year player at Montana failed to make the NCAA tournament. Most of them made multiple trips. It became the norm, the expectation.

Call it the Selvig Standard. Win 20 games, roll through the conference tournament, let some big-name program in the Big Dance know the Lady Griz, from out in Montana, could play a little basketball.

Over the last six seasons, Montana hasn't once finished in the top three in the Big Sky Conference, this after the previous 37 teams finished outside the top three in their league just three times.

That's why Brian Holsinger, the first-year coach, is here, to shake down the thunder, not to bring back the days of old but to start a new era that adds to the storied history.

He's fully embraced his first team and has already invested months of his time into making these Lady Griz as good as they can be. That's why he was hired. It's what they deserve. It's what they've earned.

At the same time, he's working behind the scenes, recruiting and evaluating players who will become household names six, seven, eight years from now. That, too, is why he was brought on.

He has that luxury, of time, of patience, of being able to take a long-term approach.

That's something she doesn't have, the other half of this odd couple. Her clock is ticking, toward zero, toward the end, as it does for all college athletes.

He's been here for months. She's been here for years, during tumultuous times in a program long known for stability, the antithetical Lady Griz.

It wasn't supposed to be like this, especially for a girl from Malta. There was a precedent for this, was there not, a playbook authored by Greta Koss and Skyla Sisco and other former M-ettes.

Go to Missoula, become a Lady Griz, live your best life, remember it forever.

Oh, Sophia Stiles will remember it all right. The torn ACL that sabotaged her freshman season.

The following year, when she could have returned at less than 100 percent midway through but chose to sit, trading a partial season for a full one down the road, bench-based misery for a girl wired to compete.

The changing of a coach after Year 3, the COVID season of Year 4 that was as unfulfilling as it was shortened and filled with uncertainty and minus the fan base that brings the goosebumps.

But adversity introduces a woman to herself, right?

"It's definitely not what you picture when you come into college basketball," she says. "It makes for a lot of good life lessons. I think I'm pretty adaptable at this point.

"I feel like my career here has been full of changes. It's made me be able to adapt as a person, and I'm not always so fond of change."

He's got lofty goals, the biggest of them coming down the road, after she has wrapped up her Lady Griz career and is watching the next wave of players from afar, if not the stands.

That's not to discount the season ahead, because the road back has to start somewhere and someone has to do the heavy lifting, to help bridge the gap between eras.

She's hopeful, of playing for a championship this season, but she's also a realist. She knows what's out there in the Big Sky Conference, the hill that would have to be climbed, the obstacles in the way.

She knows the sweat equity she invests now may not be paid in full come March, but if not her, then who?

Then Sophia Stiles says something that may be the most beautiful, the most selfless, the most heartbreaking and heartwarming thing you've ever heard a Lady Griz say.

"Winning this season would be really ideal, but honestly I just want to get the program back to where it was," she says before really opening her heart.

"I'm willing to take one for the team, in the sense of going through the hardships to eventually get it back to where it can be and where it should be."

Meaning if she doesn't get to enjoy the fruits of her labor this season, she hopes others on future Lady Griz teams will be able to, again and again, like years past.

But that wasn't their mindset, collectively, when the Lady Griz opened their season last week. Nobody settles in October, the month of dreaming big.

"We're going to focus on getting better every single day. As we jump into practice, that will be our focus. They've done a great job of that so far," said Holsinger, formerly at Oregon State.

"Everything is so new to them, it's going to be a process. It will take us some time, but I expect us to be pretty good halfway through the season. I know we'll win games if we just continue to improve."

He's probably had some bad days as coach of the Lady Griz, a lost recruit here, a scheduling conflict he couldn't resolve to his liking there, but Holsinger doesn't show it.

No first-year Montana coach in recent memory, in any sport, has stepped into the job and made it feel so right, so natural, like it was meant to be.

Then he went about surrounding himself with a staff that made it feel even more so.

"I'm having a blast and having so much fun being the leader. It's renewed my energy in the game," he says.

"Some of the things you deal with aren't as fun, but the leadership part and being able to work with our staff and players on a daily basis has really been a thrill for me."

Prior to interviewing for the Montana job last April, Holsinger performed an in-depth analysis of everyone on the Lady Griz roster, their strengths, their weakness, everything about them.

Of course that was all based on video and stats and what could be taken from their play on the court, where they were two-dimensional on a screen, purely basketball players and not necessarily people.

It wasn't until he arrived in Missoula and met with them in person that he experienced their depth, saw what they were made of, saw them as human beings, with hopes and dreams and fears.

He's a relationship-driven person, and he needed to be with them, hear them, get a genuine feel for them before those bonds could start forming.

He loved the opportunity to become a Division I coach. After a handful of workouts with the returners over the summer, he liked more and more the players he had inherited.

"Their willingness to listen and be coachable has been really good," he says. "Their response to how I teach and how as a staff we motivate and coach them has been remarkable.

"If they'll listen and apply what we're trying to teach them, we'll improve fast. We've already shown dramatic improvement. If you're coachable and willing to change, I think you can have a good team."

He started out with just a few of them, the returners. Workouts were intimate, personal, nearly as many coaches as players: Stiles, Abby Anderson, Kylie Frohlich, Carmen Gfeller, Willa Albrecht, Kyndall Keller.

Why wouldn't he have come away each day enthused?

Who wouldn't want the three leading scorers from last year's team back? Anderson, who has 144 career blocked shots? Gfeller, who shot 52.9 percent last season with her silky-smooth jumper?

And Stiles, who did yeoman's work a year ago, logging 31 minutes per game and averaging 11.7 points and 5.8 rebounds while leading the team in assists and steals?

Plus Albrecht and Keller, who came off promising freshman seasons?

But the seniors, especially, came into this new relationship with scar tissue, and the coach knew it. That happens when you've had multiple head coaches over the years.

You commit to one, you buy into what they ask for, what they ask you to do, then you're told things are going to change. It's not your fault, but it hits you the hardest. You need to be won back.

"This summer we worked real hard just gaining trust," said Holsinger. "These kids have had three coaches in three years, and that's not easy. I don't care where that is, it's just hard.

"You rebuild that trust by being consistent in how you coach them, how you approach them, how you teach them every day. It was about getting them as confident and bought in as possible.

"You get the seniors to buy in, everybody typically follows. I feel like they are."

Dani Bartsch and Haley Huard, who committed last November, were coming in, and Holsinger added to the class by looking east, way east.

He signed Lisa Kiefer, a long, 6-foot-3 forward from Marburg, Germany, who looks Power 5 but ended up at Montana, which is how Robin Selvig got his program off and running so many years ago.

He added Lamprini Polymeni from Thessaloniki, Greece, and Katerina Tsineke, also from Thessaloniki by way of East Carolina, a guard who brings some valuable backcourt experience.

Nyah Morris-Nelson, a senior now in her second season, returned to campus later in the summer, where she may have bumped into Sammy Fatkin and wondered who the new girl in the locker room was.

Of course Fatkin is not new to Lady Griz fans. She started 15 games in 2018-19 after getting cleared following her transfer from Arizona. She's got game, and she showed it when given the chance.

She stepped away from the sport midway through the 2019-20 season, but the game never left her. So Holsinger jumped at the chance to add her for one final season once he knew the interest was still there.

While his coaching resume does not approach Selvig's -- and really, whose does outside of maybe two dozen over the course of women's college basketball history? -- they share some common beliefs.

Selvig was a stickler for the fundamentals, taught as he was by Jud Heathcote, and for defense. Have a casual, on-and-off-again relationship with either and you can have a seat on the bench.

Holsinger has the same beliefs: "Make sure your fundamentals are right, then everything else takes care of itself. That's in everything we do, from offense to defense.

"Focus on doing things the right way and you'll be successful. If not, it's hard to be successful. We preach that over and over.

"Focus on the process of continuing to improve, of playing the right way on defense and executing on offense and we'll win games because of that."

It feels early, just the first week of October, but the month will burn through the days quickly, as tends to happen in the preseason.

It can feel like a grind, the daily routine, then one day you look up and it's the morning of the Maroon and Silver scrimmage on the 27th, the unofficial kickoff to the season for the viewing public.

"I'm excited about our team. I like our team. We'll know a lot more about them in the next few weeks, but I like our versatility and I like our buy-in more than anything," Holsinger said.

"I'm excited about some of our young players. I think they have a chance to contribute. How much? That's to be determined, probably as much as they want to play defense."

Which Selvig likely said each October. This too:

"We're going to stop people. We're going to play defense, and we're going to be physical and tough. We're going to make it really hard on the other team," said Holsinger.

In less than a month, Montana will be playing its lone exhibition game, against Rocky Mountain. Then comes the opener against Northwest Nazarene, followed five days later by Gonzaga at home.

The conclusion of Grand Canyon's tournament flips the calendar to December, which is when Big Sky play begins, and the weeks fly by in a mix of finals and pre-holiday games.

After Christmas it's all league, all the time. And soon enough Boise will be here and the calendar will say March and it's win-or-go-home and Stiles will have had her senior day.

And that's the fun, isn't it, for them and for us watching, cheering, of taking what could be, this world of possibilities, then putting in the time, the energy, the work, and seeing if it really can be?

"I think we can get there, I really do," said Stiles. "I truly think this is a team that can do it.

"I wouldn't say a championship is the only measurable, but I think that would really bring it full circle for me and really make me feel good about my five years here."

One headed toward the exit of her career, with plenty still to prove but dwindling days to do it, the other just beginning his tenure, charged with restoring the pride, bringing back the glory.

They'll go about it together, each helping the other get where they want to go. In lockstep, the odd couple takes the Lady Griz into the season ahead.

University of Montana Athletics

Players Mentioned

Willa Albrecht

Abby Anderson

Dani Bartsch

Sammy Fatkin

Kylie Frohlich

Carmen Gfeller

Haley Huard

Kyndall Keller

Lisa Kiefer

Nyah Morris-Nelson

Lamprini Polymeni

Sophia Stiles

Katerina Tsineke

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