Lady Griz open season hosting Bison

The Montana women's basketball team will open the 2022-23 season on Monday evening with a home game against North Dakota State inside Dahlberg Arena.

The Lady Griz (0-0) and Bison (0-0) will tip off at 6 p.m. on the opening day of college basketball across the NCAA Division I landscape.

Montana went 19-11 last season, the most wins for the program since 2015-16, and tied for fourth in the Big Sky Conference with a 12-8 league record.

The Lady Griz, with three starters back, were picked second, behind Montana State, in the Big Sky preseason polls.

North Dakota State went 11-18 in 2021-22 and finished sixth in the Summit League at 7-11. The Bison return two starters and have eight newcomers, including four transfers.

North Dakota State was picked fifth in the top-heavy Summit League, which has the No. 1 ranked team (South Dakota State) and No. 23 team (South Dakota) in the preseason mid-major top-25 poll.

The Jackrabbits and Coyotes were picked first and second in the Summit League poll, followed by Oral Roberts, North Dakota and NDSU.

Montana hosts North Dakota and plays at South Dakota in the coming weeks.

Coverage: Monday's game will be streamed on ESPN+ with Riley "Ace" Sauerwein making his Lady Griz debut. The game can be heard locally on KMPT 930 AM/99.7 FM.

Summary:

There will be more unknowns than knowns when Montana and North Dakota State tip off the season on Monday evening in Missoula.

Neither team, both of which have plenty of new faces that will factor heavily in the season ahead, played an open-to-the-public exhibition game, opting instead to keep things behind closed doors.

What is known is that Montana is playing inside Dahlberg Arena, where the Lady Griz went 12-3 last season and are 567-91 (.862) all-time.

Montana is 38-6 in home openers during the modern era of Lady Griz basketball, which began in 1978-79.

"Really glad to be home for our opener, that's for sure," said second-year coach Brian Holsinger, whose team lost at home last season only to Gonzaga, Utah Valley and Idaho State.

"When it's this early in the season, it's more about us than it is about the opponent. We're just trying to play the right way and the way we want to play."

Monday's game is the second part of a home-and-home series that started last November in Fargo.

Montana fell behind 34-24 at the half but shot 16 for 29 (.552) in the second half against North Dakota State's zone defense to win 65-63 on a buzzer-beater by Carmen Gfeller.

The Lady Griz trailed for nearly 26 minutes of the game.

"Last year they kind of surprised us with some zone we hadn't seen from them, so that caused a little bit of confusion, but we made a big play down the stretch that allowed us to win," said Holsinger.

It's only a year later, but it will be a mostly new-look Bison team.

Senior guard Heaven Hamling, who led the team in both scoring (14.1/g) and assists (78) last season and hit 67 3-pointers, second-most in the Summit League, is back, as is senior guard Abby Schulte.

Hamling was one of six players named first-team Preseason All-Summit League, which is a high honor.

"A key, for sure, will be limiting their two guards, Schulte and Hamling. They are both good players and capable scorers. That's going to be a big key," said Holsinger.

Five players who started a game last season are gone, including Ryan Cobbins, who scored a game-high 19 points in last year's matchup. She is now playing at Alabama.

To fortify his roster, fourth-year coach Jory Collins, who built his 236-104 career record with plenty of success at Division II Emporia State, looked to the transfer portal.

He added players from Bradley, American, Eastern Kentucky and Oklahoma A&M.

The most high-profile of those newcomers is fifth-year forward Taylor Brown, the second-leading scorer on American's 23-win team that won the Patriot League and advanced to the NCAA tournament.

That North Dakota State, with just two starters back, was picked to finish higher this season than last year's finish means the coaches of the Summit League like what the Bison have brought in.

"We don't know a lot about their team. They have a lot of transfers and a few returners we know are good," said Holsinger.

"They were picked middle of the Summit League, which is a really good league, and Jory is a good coach. He'll have them ready."

Series history: Montana and North Dakota State have met just three times previously, only twice this century. The Lady Griz lead the series 2-1.

Monday's game will be the first between the teams in Missoula, though North Dakota State did play a pair of games in Missoula in 2005-06.

The Bison played in the Lady Griz Classic that year, in what was Amy Ruley's 27th of 29 seasons at NDSU. They lost to UNC Asheville and defeated New Orleans.

Montana defeated North Dakota State 58-49 in Bozeman in 1977-78, the Bison won 70-53 in 2013-14 at Loyola Marymount's tournament in Los Angeles.

Montana went up 2-1 in the series with last season's 65-63 win in Fargo. Gfeller finished with 18 points, 10 rebounds. Four of the team's five starters scored in double figures.

Montana notes:

* Montana is 30-14 in its season opener since 1978-79, just 5-8 the last 13 seasons. The Lady Griz haven't won their first game against a Division I opponent since 2013-14, eight straight losses.

* Montana has five players who could make their Lady Griz debut on Monday: transfers Gina Marxen (Idaho) and Keeli Burton-Oliver (Arizona State/Washington State), and freshmen Mack Konig, Alex Pirog and Libby Stump.

* Marxen enters the season with 954 career points which she scored in three seasons as a Vandal. She was the Big Sky Freshman of the Year in 2018-19, first-team All-Big Sky as a sophomore, second-team as a junior.

* Freshman Draya Wacker was injured during the preseason and will miss the upcoming season.

* Senior Carmen Gfeller was voted first-team All-Big Sky last season and to this year's seven-player Preseason All-Big Sky team. She averaged 13.9 points on 51.4 percent shooting last season.

* Fifth-year wing Sammy Fatkin was leading Montana in scoring (13.6/g) last season when she went down in early February with an ankle injury against Idaho State.

She missed nearly a month before returning for the regular-season finale at Sacramento State and Montana's Big Sky tournament loss against Northern Arizona.

* Sophomore Haley Huard is Montana's third returning starter. Huard, who led the team in 3-pointers with 41, moved into the starting lineup in mid-December and remained there the rest of the season.

* Senior guard Katerina Tsineke played in all 30 games last season, starting 13. Sophomore forward Dani Bartsch played in 29 of 30 games. She averaged 3.9 points on 50.6 percent shooting and 4.2 rebounds.

Bartsch ranked third on the team in offensive rebounds, just seven behind the leader, despite playing 12.5 minutes per game.

* Redshirt sophomore Willa Albrecht played in six early-season games last season before sitting out January, February and March with an injury. Sophomore Lisa Kiefer played in eight games.

* Holsinger had one coaching position to fill in the offseason. He brought in Lisa O'Meara, whose most recent college coaching position was at Saint Mary's.

* The Lady Griz ranked 13th nationally last season in field goal percentage defense (.355). Montana led the Big Sky in both that category and scoring defense (60.6/g).

* Montana will play at Colorado State on Friday at 5 p.m., the first half of a women's-men's doubleheader. The Rams were picked third in the Mountain West, behind UNLV and New Mexico.

Colorado State has played in the NCAA tournament once and the WNIT five times since 2012.

* Montana will host Providence (MT) in the Lady Griz School Day game on Tuesday, Nov. 15, at 11 a.m. Montana hasn't hosted a School Day game since bringing in a crowd of 7,205 early in 2019-20.

* Montana will get Summit League opponent No. 2 when it hosts North Dakota on Sunday, Nov. 20.

* The Lady Griz will follow that up with games against Wichita State and California at Loyola Marymount's tournament over Thanksgiving weekend.

* Montana will play five pre-Christmas games in December. The three games on the road – at Washington State, at South Dakota and at Gonzaga – all come against teams who received votes in the AP preseason national poll. All three played in last year's NCAA tournament.

* Montana will get Grand Canyon at home on Dec. 8. The Lopes were picked third in the preseason Western Athletic Conference polls.

* Eight Big Sky Conference teams will be in action on Monday. Only three will face a Division I opponent: Idaho (at Utah), Northern Arizona (at Arizona State) and Montana.

University of Montana Athletics

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