Utah Valley knocks off Montana

Thursday, December 9

Missoula, Mont.

7 PM

Montana

7-2

Utah Valley

5-3

Utah Valley

Montana

Photo by: Derek Johnson

12/9/2021 11:12:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score Photo Gallery

By: Montana Sports Information

It was a night of missed opportunities for the Montana women's basketball team, which fell 63-50 to Utah Valley at Dahlberg Arena on Thursday.

A chance to win its seventh consecutive game, a chance to knock off one of the top teams in the Western Athletic Conference.

And it came down to misses, as the Lady Griz shot a season-low 30.2 percent and were held to a season-low 50 points.

"The bottom line is we just did not play well enough to win the game, all the way around," said coach Brian Holsinger, whose team shot 4 for 16 in the fourth quarter after entering the period down just two, 42-40.

Montana opened the game shooting 1 for 6, with four of those five misses coming in the paint. It would be a frustrating trend that would continue for 40 minutes.

The Lady Griz took 38 of their 63 shots in the lane but only hit 12 of them (.316), with ball after ball rolling off the rim, good shots that didn't have a good result.

"There were some layups we should have made for sure, some easy shots," said Holsinger.

"Anytime your opponent is physical and well-coached, you have to take your time and execute and make layups when you get them, and we didn't do a good job of that tonight."

That physicality was part of the problem for Montana, which had Utah Valley hands on its ballhandlers and Wolverines bodying cutters. Nothing came easily.

Utah Valley was whistled for 10 first-half fouls, Montana three, and it could have been an even wider difference.

"Tough game, tough game," said Holsinger. "They were physical and exactly what we expected. We haven't seen that kind of physicality for a while, since Gonzaga.

"The game was physical, and we didn't respond very well to that. That's on me. I didn't have them prepared."

Still, the game was mostly tight throughout, with neither team leading by more than five in the first half, which ended with Montana holding a 28-27 edge.

It was 20 minutes of missed opportunities for the Lady Griz, who could have had a lead of 10 or more at the break.

Utah Valley's two leading scorers, scoring guard Maria Carvalho and 6-foot-5 center Josie Williams, played less than 90 seconds combined of the second quarter because of foul trouble.

Playing with that advantage, Montana only outscored Utah Valley 15-11, going 5 for 16.

"I thought we should have had a 10-point lead at half. Instead it's a closer game than it should have been. Instead it's a one-point game," said Holsinger.

"We still don't have the mentality of knocking down shots. I don't know what it is yet, maybe a confidence thing, but we're missing some easy ones."

Montana has been a second-half team all season, and it looked like the Lady Griz were going to start to finally pull away early in the third quarter.

Abby Anderson scored inside, Carmen Gfeller hit a free throw and Anderson scored again to make it 33-27, but that would be Montana's largest lead of the game.

Utah Valley hit five of its next six shots and outscored Montana 15-4 over the next five minutes to turn a six-point deficit into a 42-37 lead. The Lady Griz would never hold the lead again.

A Gfeller 3-pointer late in the period made it 42-40 going into the fourth.

Utah Valley won the game in the opening two and a half minutes of the final period, when Tahlia White, Ally Blackman and Carvalho hit 3-pointers on three straight possessions to put the Wolverines up 53-42.

"We didn't execute the zone the way we were supposed to, and they got hot and that was the difference in the game," said Holsinger.

"They had eight days to prepare for us, and it looked like it. They were ready to go and ready to play. They came in here and got us."

While Carvalho, UVU's leading scorer on the season, was held to 12 points, four below her average on 5-of-14 shooting, the difference was Williams, who finished with 19 points on 8-of-17 shooting and 13 rebounds.

"She hadn't scored like that, so credit to her," said Holsinger. "She came out right from the start and was the difference in the game.

"We had a hard time stopping her. She kind of got what she wanted. That's the first team that's done that to us all season."

Gfeller led Montana with 15 points but on uncharacteristic 6-of-14 shooting. Anderson had her sixth career double-double with 14 points and 10 rebounds, but her points came on 17 shot attempts, a career high.

Her four blocks give her 159 for her career, moving past Katie Baker (2009-13) and into sixth place in program history.

Sophia Stiles had 12 rebounds, nine assists and six points, her seventh career game with 10 or more boards.

Montana outrebounded Utah Valley, a team with a +4.9 average margin on the season, 45-37. Seventeen of those came on the offensive end. It would have been a major storyline had the Lady Griz won.

Montana's bench, which went just four deep without Nyah Morris-Nelson, was only able to contribute six points, with Stiles playing all 40 minutes, Sammy Fatkin 37. Anderson and Gfeller both played 32.

"We didn't get a lot from our bench tonight. I didn't feel comfortable, so Soph had to play a lot of minutes, and that impacted her," said Holsinger. "That's on me. We have to get those bench kids ready."

Montana will be off until hosting Seattle next Thursday at 7 p.m.