Lady Griz host Eagles on Thursday

The Montana women's basketball team will look to put an end to a two-game losing streak when it hosts Eastern Washington on Thursday night at Dahlberg Arena in Missoula.

The Lady Griz (9-4, 2-2 BSC) and Eagles (2-8, 0-1 BSC) will tip off at 7 p.m.

Montana took a 9-2 record into the Christmas break but lost twice on the road last week, 69-61 at Idaho State and 66-56 at Weber State.

Thursday's will be the only game of the week for the Lady Griz, who had their Sunday game at Montana State postponed because of COVID issues in the Bobcat program.

Eastern Washington had its own postponements last week and won't have played since Dec. 21, a 76-48 home loss to Gonzaga, when Thursday's game tips off.

Montana will have another single-game week next week when the Lady Griz play at Southern Utah on Thursday, Jan. 13.

Thursday special: With school not yet back in session, the general public will have the option to purchase a $5 ticket to sit in the student section on Thursday. Only 150 of these tickets are available. Fans are encouraged to purchase their tickets in advance.

At a glance (Montana): The Lady Griz, who were 9-2 at this time last week, will attempt to bounce back from a disappointing 0-2 return to league.

Montana, playing without point guard Sophia Stiles, lost 69-61 on Thursday at Idaho State, last year's Big Sky regular-season and tournament champion and this year's preseason favorite.

The Lady Griz followed that up with a 66-56 loss on Saturday at Weber State, the team picked 10th out of 11 in the preseason coaches' poll but off to a surprising 3-1 start in league.

Montana entered the road trip shooting 45.0 percent while limiting its opponents to 33.1 percent shooting.

Against Idaho State and Weber State, those numbers were nearly flipped. The Lady Griz shot 34.3 percent in the two losses while allowing their opponents to shoot 43.8 percent.

Montana had allowed just one opponent through its 9-2 start to shoot better than 41 percent. Both opponents last week shot better than 43 percent.

In Thursday's loss at Idaho State, Montana fell behind 11-2 in the opening three minutes and never held the lead again.

The Lady Griz trailed by 14 at the half, 38-24, but managed to pull within four, 61-57, with 2:33 remaining. Idaho State would score the next six points to close out its 15th straight home win.

Montana had another slow start two days later at Weber State. The Lady Griz trailed 16-4 after the first period, when Montana went 1 for 10 with nine turnovers.

Montana, which trailed by 10 or more points for more than half the game, was down 46-40 entering the fourth quarter. The Wildcats scored the first eight points of the final period to put the game away.

Montana had four players average between 10 and 12.5 points on the road trip, but its bench added just 22 points over the two games.

Carmen Gfeller had 15 points, nine rebounds against Idaho State. Sammy Fatkin totaled 13 points, four rebounds, four assists and two steals against Weber State.

Thursday's loss was Montana's fifth straight against Idaho State and its ninth in the teams' last 11 games. Saturday's loss snapped Montana's six-game winning streak against Weber State.

At a glance (Eastern Washington): The Eagles, under first-year coach Joddie Gleason, will enter Thursday's game with a record of 2-8 and on a four-game losing streak.

Both of the Eagles' wins this season have come at home against non-Division I opponents, 101-38 over Evergreen and 102-61 over Multnomah.

EWU is 0-8 against Division I competition, though five of those eight losses have come by 11 points or fewer, including on the road at Washington, 62-59, and Grand Canyon, 64-57.

Eastern Washington opened league with a 60-46 road loss at Southern Utah back in early December.

The team's return to league last week, with home games against Portland State and Northern Arizona, was postponed.

Eastern Washington's most recent game was a 74-48 home loss to Gonzaga on Dec. 21.

The team's leading scorer is freshman Jaydia Martin, who has scored 12 or more points in her first 10 collegiate games. Her season average of 16.5 ranks second in the Big Sky.

Jacinta Buckley averages 10.0 points and a team-leading 6.9 rebounds. The Spokane native is in her first year as an Eagle after playing two seasons at UNLV.

The team's third- and fourth-leading scorers are freshmen as well.

Gleason, who replaced the perennially underappreciated Wendy Schuller last spring, was most recently the associate head coach at Seattle.

Series history:

* Montana leads the series with Eastern Washington 75-24 and has won the last four meetings between the two schools.

* The Lady Griz are 44-8 in Missoula against the Eagles, though EWU has won two of the last three matchups between the teams inside Dahlberg Arena.

* The teams played a home-and-home series last season, with Montana winning 65-53 in Missoula, then two days later winning 65-62 in Cheney.

* First-year Eastern Washington coach Joddie Gleason was 2-1 against Montana as the associate head coach at Seattle. She is 1-0 in Missoula. The Redhawks won 78-64 at Dahlberg Arena in 2017-18.

* First-year Montana coach Brian Holsinger is 2-0 against Eastern Washington. He won once against the Eagles while on the staff at Washington State, once while on staff at Oregon State.

Summary:

For the first time in the Brian Holsinger era, Montana is facing the challenges that come with losing consecutive games.

In retrospect, that the Lady Griz lost twice last week, at Idaho State and Weber State, maybe wasn't that much of a shock.

The team that left Missoula before Christmas 9-2 returned to campus a few days later a shell of itself. There were travel issues, there were illnesses, there were injuries.

"Anytime you have that, it impacts your preparation," said Holsinger. "How you practice is how you play, and that was pretty obvious based on how we played."

Facing Idaho State without senior point guard Sophia Stiles on Thursday in Pocatello, Montana fell behind 11-2 three minutes in and never fully recovered.

The Lady Griz, who trailed 38-24 at the half, their largest halftime deficit of the season, pulled within four with more than two and a half minutes still to go, but Idaho State pulled away for the win.

"We dug ourselves a hole by not doing the right things," Holsinger said. "We battled back. I was really proud of that kind of effort. We played much better the second half. Down the stretch they out-executed us."

Holsinger said after the loss, "If we learn from tonight and play the right way on Saturday and the way we can, perfect. If we don't, that's when I'm going to be really disappointed."

In Ogden on Saturday, Montana had a forgettable first quarter and never recovered, falling 66-56. In the opening 10 minutes, the Lady Griz went 1 for 10 with nine turnovers.

"We just didn't play well from start to finish, so that was disappointing. But you learn and you grow and you keep getting better," said Holsinger.

Thursday night, no matter the location of the game, can't get here quickly enough for a team wanting to make things right.

"Just to play in general (will be good for us)," said Holsinger. "We had a bunch of adversity coming back from the break, and we didn't handle it well. So we're excited to get back and play. And we get to play at home, where we've been pretty good."

The week opened with the news on Monday that Sunday's game at Montana State has been postponed.

"Disappointing," said Holsinger, who would have been coaching in his first Montana-Montana State game. "We wanted to go play that game.

"After what we did last weekend, (the players) are very anxious to play again and get rid of some of the things we did and do some things better."

On Thursday Montana will face a young Eastern Washington team that doesn't have a Division I win to its credit but has some results that give an opposing coach pause.

That Eastern Washington led by 13 points in the second half at Washington last month before losing by three will grab any coach's attention.

"They're young with a new coach, kind of like me, and they have some really talented young kids," said Holsinger. "They are playing very confident, very free.

"They haven't won a ton but that's kind of deceiving because they've played some close games against good teams. They are coming along."

The x-factor might be Eastern Washington's long break between games. The last time the Eagles played was at home against Gonzaga on Dec. 21. That will make it 15 off days between games when Thursday tips off.

"They haven't played in a long time," said Holsinger. "It will be interesting to see how that impacts them. But I know (Gleason) and she does a good job with the kids. They'll be ready to play."

Holsinger will prep his team to face the Eagles, but at the same time, Montana has plenty to work on internally.

The Lady Griz, who put up 103 points in their final game before Christmas, averaged 58.5 points on 34.3 percent shooting in two games last week.

Montana had 37 turnovers against Idaho State and Weber State and got outscored 36-16 in the first quarter, rough starts that had the Lady Griz playing uphill the entire road trip.

"We are really focused more on ourselves right now, to be honest," Holsinger said. "Based on our performance last week, we had to get back to doing the things that made us successful early in the season.

"We got away from those over the break, so we're really focused on us more than we're focused on any opponent. If we play right, we have enough talent on our team to win most games. That lesson was driven home this past weekend when we didn't play the right way and it cost us."

Game notes:

* When Sophia Stiles missed Thursday's game at Idaho State, it was her first missed game since December 2019, when she sat out against MSU Billings because of illness.

* Thursday will be a matchup of two of the Big Sky's top three teams in field goal percentage defense. Montana ranks first (.346), Eastern Washington third (.370).

* Montana is 5-2 at home this season. Eastern Washington is 0-5 away from home.

* The Lady Griz shot better than their opponent in 10 of 11 games prior to Christmas. Idaho State and Weber State both shot better than Montana last week.

* Montana has still been outrebounded just one time this season, by Gonzaga. The team's rebounding margin of +7.4 ranks second in the Big Sky behind next week's opponent, Southern Utah.

* As Montana's bench goes, the Lady Griz go. Montana is 6-1 this season when its reserves outscore the opponent's reserves.

* Abby Anderson moved into fifth place on the Montana career blocks list last week. She now has 170. In fourth is Angella Bieber, who had 175 while playing from 1994-98.

* Montana's current four-game winning streak over Eastern Washington follows the Eagles' six-game winning streak against the Lady Griz, EWU's longest in a series that dates back to 1975.

* Abby Anderson is 16 for 31 (.516) the last three games while averaging 15.3 points. Her scoring surge has upped her season average to 10.0, giving Montana four players averaging in double figures. Montana has not had four players average in double figures for an entire season since 1988-89.

* Even at less than full strength, Sophia Stiles grabbed 10 rebounds at Weber State. It was her fourth game this season with 10 or more boards, the eighth of her career.

* Nyah Morris-Nelson opened the season 0 for 12 from the arc. She's 13 for 26 since. She hit three triples at Idaho State to match her career high.

* Carmen Gfeller was limited to nine points at Weber State, snapping a nine-game streak in double figures.

* Montana scored four first-quarter points at Weber State on Saturday. The team's previous lowest-scoring quarter this season was 10.

* It was the lowest-scoring period for Montana since falling behind Northern Colorado 17-4 after one period in Greeley last January.

* Montana's largest lead in two games last week was two points. The Lady Griz didn't hold a lead in the final 36 minutes of either game.

* Abby Anderson leads the Big Sky in blocked shots (2.0/g) and ranks 32nd nationally.

* Sophia Stiles ranks third in the Big Sky in assists (5.4/g), 31st nationally, first in the Big Sky in assist-to-turnover ratio (2.6), 26th nationally.

* Carmen Gfeller ranks third in the Big Sky in field goal percentage (.573), 28th nationally, fourth in scoring (14.3/g) and free throw percentage (.848).

Around the Big Sky Conference:

* Through two weekends of league games, Southern Utah and Northern Arizona sit atop the Big Sky standings at 3-0. Idaho State and Weber State are 3-1, Montana and Montana State 2-2.

* Eastern Washington (0-1 BSC), Idaho (0-2), Northern Colorado (0-2), Portland State (0-2) and Sacramento State (0-3) are all seeking their first league win.

* Idaho (1-10, 0-2 BSC) is on a 10-game losing streak and hasn't won since opening the season with a home win over Lewis-Clark State. The Vandals, picked third in the preseason polls, haven't finished within 10 of an opponent since November.

* The league saw four of 10 games get postponed last week. Southern Utah at Portland State and Idaho at Montana State have been postponed for Thursday night. That leaves Eastern Washington and Montana the only game still scheduled to be played.

* Two of Saturday's and Sunday's five games have been postponed.

* Still on for Saturday are two good ones: Southern Utah at Northern Arizona and Idaho State at Weber State.

Upcoming: Montana will play at Southern Utah on Thursday, Jan. 13, in what will be the Lady Griz' only game next week.

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Players Mentioned

Abby Anderson

Sammy Fatkin

Carmen Gfeller

Nyah Morris-Nelson

Sophia Stiles

University of Montana Athletics