Lady Griz travel to Pullman for Friday game

The Montana women's basketball team will face its second Pac-12 team in less than a week when it travels to Pullman and faces Washington State on Friday night.

The Lady Griz (2-4) and Cougars (5-1) will tip off at 7 p.m. (MT) inside WSU's Beasley Coliseum.

Montana faced California of the Pac-12 on Saturday at Loyola Marymount's Thanksgiving Classic and fell 65-44.

Friday's game will open Montana's December schedule and start its toughest 19-day stretch of the season.

Prior to Christmas, the Lady Griz will face four opponents – Washington State, Grand Canyon, South Dakota and Gonzaga – three on the road, who are 20-6. The Lady Griz also will face Montana Tech.

Montana's game at Gonzaga on Wednesday, Dec. 21, will conclude its pre-Christmas schedule. The Lady Griz will open their Big Sky Conference schedule at Eastern Washington and Idaho on Dec. 29 and 31.

Coverage: Fans can watch Friday's game on WSU Live Stream or get the Montana broadcast, with Riley "Ace" Sauerwein, on KMPT 930 AM/99.7 FM or 930kmpt.com.

At a glance (Montana): The Lady Griz took a two-game winning streak to Southern California last week but weren't able to add to it.

On Friday, Montana built an 11-point fourth-quarter lead on Wichita State but allowed the Shockers to rally for a 78-69 overtime victory.

Montana held Wichita State to 36 points on 32.7 percent shooting through the game's first 31 minutes.

Over the final nine minutes of regulation and five of overtime, the Shockers put up 42 points on 60.9 percent shooting to flip the game and the outcome.

Gina Marxen led Montana with 17 points, six assists and three steals.

Haley Huard, just 3 of 16 from 3-point range entering the game, went 4 for 8 from the arc and scored 13 points, her first time in double figures since scoring 11 in a home win over Northern Arizona in January.

Keeli Burton-Oliver had 12 points on 5-of-8 shooting and eight rebounds in 22 minutes. Libby Stump added 12 points off the bench.

It was Montana's third overtime game under second-year coach Brian Holsinger. The Lady Griz dropped to 1-2 in those games.

For the second time in three games, Montana matched the program record for 3-point attempts with 33 against the Shockers.

Wichita State hit just two 3-pointers through the game's first 40 minutes. Shamaryah Duncan hit three by herself in the five-minute overtime period.

WSU's Jane Asinde had 20 points, 19 rebounds, the most rebounds by an opposing player since Incarnate Word's Celia Garcia Paunero grabbed 19 in a Montana home win in 2016-17.

The following day, a team hit with illness led for just 23 seconds and shot 23.3 percent, the team's lowest shooting percentage since going 21.6 percent in a 65-47 home loss to Utah State in 2016-17.

Montana trailed 20-9 after the first quarter, 40-27 at the half, then went just 1 for 16 in the third quarter. The Lady Griz went a combined 3 for 30 in the first and third quarters.

Sammy Fatkin and Libby Stump shot 8 for 16 and both finished with 11 points. The rest of the team shot 6 for 44 (.136). Stump was the lone player to reach double figures in both games in California.

After outrebounding each of its first four opponents this season, Montana got outrebounded by both Wichita State (-11) and California (-5).

The Lady Griz limited to Golden Bears to 37.3 percent shooting, the first time in five games this season against a Division I opponent that Montana held a team below 40 percent shooting.

Montana held California to just two points through the opening six and a half minutes of the second half.

At a glance (Washington State): These are intoxicating times for fans of the Cougars, a program that struggled to compete in the Pac-12 for most of three decades.

Their savior: coach Kamie Ethridge, who turned four years of success at Northern Colorado into the job at Washington State after leading the Bears to the 2018 NCAA tournament.

Ethridge's first two teams, in 2018-19 and 2019-20, combined to win 20 games and went 8-28 in the Pac-12. Then things started to change.

The Cougars went .500 overall in 2020-21 and made the NCAA tournament after going 9-10 in league. It was Washington State's first NCAA tournament appearance since 1990-91.

Washington State made it back-to-back NCAA tournaments last season, winning a program-record 19 games and tying for second in the Pac-12 at 11-6.

It was Washington State's first winning record in the Pac-12 since 1990-91.

Ethridge-coached teams now have two of Washington State's three NCAA tournament appearances.

With four starters and nine letter-winners back from that team, the Cougars were picked a strong seventh in the preseason poll for the nation's deepest conference.

Headlining those returners is junior guard Charlisse Leger-Walker, who averaged 16.1 points last season while playing 36 minutes per game.

Leger-Walker was the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year in 2020-21 and All-Pac-12 as a freshman and a sophomore.

Washington State is off to a 5-1 start in 2022-23, its five wins coming by an average of more than 24 points.

The Cougars opened the season with a 93-41 home win over Loyola Marymount and most recently dominated a really good South Dakota State team on Monday, winning 61-41.

The Jackrabbits, the nation's top preseason mid-major program, went without a made field goal in the second quarter and shot 21.0 percent over the final three periods.

Washington State, behind 17 points from Teder Johanna, outscored South Dakota State 40-22 in the second half, 53-25 over the final three periods.

Washington State's lone loss this season was a surprising 65-56 setback against BYU in Hawaii. The Cougars are 2-5 this season. Their only other win is against Carroll.

Washington State opens its Pac-12 schedule at Washington on Dec. 11. It resumes league with a monster matchup against Utah in Pullman on Dec. 30. The Utes are 6-0 and ranked 16th nationally.

Series history: Montana leads the series with Washington State 23-8 and is 10-3 against the Cougars in Pullman.

The Lady Griz are 22-1 against the Cougars since 1980 in a series that dates back to the mid-70s.

The teams were conference rivals for four years, from 1978-79 to 1981-82, both playing in the Mountain Division of the old Northwest Women's Basketball League.

Montana went 14-1 against Washington State in the 80s, 2-0 in the 90s and has gone 6-0 against the Cougars since 2000, though the teams have played just once since 2007.

The teams' last matchup was a 90-78 Montana victory in Missoula in the 2014 WNIT, WSU's first national tournament appearance since making its NCAA tournament debut in 1990-91.

Jordan Sullivan had 21 points and 10 rebounds, Kellie Cole 22 points and nine assists for the Lady Griz, who led the final 39 minutes and put up 54 second-half points.

The Holsinger connection: Second-year Montana coach Brian Holsinger had just finished his second season at Montana Tech in 2006-07 when Washington State offered him an assistant position.

June Daugherty had just been hired (after being fired at Washington) and Holsinger would join Daugherty's first staff.

They inherited a disaster. The Cougars had gone just 8-100 in the Pac-10 the previous six seasons.

It took seven years of building before Washington State was .500 in league, going 9-9 in 2013-14. The Cougars' reward? The WNIT and a trip to Missoula.

Washington State went 17-15 the next year and returned to the WNIT in what would be Holsinger's final season in Pullman.

He stepped away from coaching for a year before joining coach Scott Rueck's staff at Oregon State in 2016-17. He spent five seasons with the Beavers before getting hired by Montana in April 2021.

Daugherty would coach at Washington State through the 2017-18 season before being replaced by Ethridge.

The Tinkle connection: It's not much of a personal connection, but Lady Griz assistant coach Joslyn Tinkle went 7-0 against Washington State while playing for Stanford from 2009-10 to 2012-13.

Her teams won those matchups by a total of 228 points, or more than 32 points per game.

Montana notes:

* The Lady Griz have gone 55-61 against the teams that currently make up the Pac-12. The only league opponent Montana has never faced is Arizona State.

* Montana's last matchup against a Pac-12 opponent came just last Saturday, a 65-44 loss to California at Loyola Marymount's tournament.

* Montana has lost its last four matchups against the Pac-12. Its last win was over Washington State in the 2014 WNIT.

* Washington State coach Kamie Ethridge went 5-4 against Montana during her four-year tenure at Northern Colorado (2014-15 to 2017-18). Her last team went 3-0 against the Lady Griz.

* Ethridge was an assistant at Vanderbilt under Jim Foster when the Commodores traveled to Missoula and came away with a 69-65 win in the preseason WNIT in November 1994.

* That was one of just four home losses for Montana during a six-year stretch from 1990-91 to 1995-96, when the Lady Griz went 89-4 on their home court.

* Montana is facing Washington State in Pullman for the first time since the 2006-07 season, a 71-60 Lady Griz victory behind Mandy Morales's 33 points, part of Montana's 27-2 regular season that year.

* Montana is seeking its first win away from home this season. The Lady Griz lost at Colorado State and dropped two games at Loyola Marymount last weekend.

* Preseason All-Big Sky Conference selection Carmen Gfeller made her season debut against Wichita State. She had five points in 26 minutes. She did not play against California.

* Montana went a costly 13 for 25 from the free throw line in its season-opening 65-63 home loss to North Dakota State. The Lady Griz have since gone 61 for 78 (.782).

* Speaking of North Dakota State, the Bison are off to a 6-0 start. Colorado State is 4-3, North Dakota is 3-3, Wichita State is 6-1, California is 5-1.

* Montana leads the Big Sky in blocked shots (4.67/g). Alex Pirog (1.2/g) and Keeli Burton-Oliver (1.2/g) rank fourth and fifth.

Around the Big Sky Conference:

* Sacramento State has won five straight games and sits atop the Big Sky standings at 5-1.

* The Hornets had a one-two punch last season in Big Sky MVP Lianna Tillman and Isnelle Natabou. Tillman's role has been taken over by Kahlaijah Dean, who is averaging 18.7 points.

* Dean is a transfer who played four years at Oakland. She was a three-time All-Horizon League selection.

* Eastern Washington, which hasn't played since Nov. 20, is 4-1.

* Another team enjoying early-season success is Northern Colorado, which is 5-2 and hosts South Dakota on Friday.

* The Bears had one of the early season's head-turning results, a 102-91 home win over Colorado State in triple overtime on Tuesday, the same team Montana struggled with in Fort Collins, losing 82-58.

* Freshman Gabi Fields, from Texas, scored 36 points against Colorado State, going 7 for 9 from the arc, the most points scored by a Big Sky player this season.

* Montana State also has five wins after Wednesday's impressive 71-66 home win over South Dakota State, a team the Bobcats had struggled to compete with in recent seasons.

* Idaho is 1-3 but Beyonce Bea is playing like the league MVP. She is averaging 22.5 points and 9.5 rebounds per game. She had 34 and 13 on Sunday in the Vandals' first win of the season, at Navy.

Upcoming: Montana will host Grand Canyon on Thursday, Dec. 8. The Lopes (5-1) lost their first game of the season on Wednesday, 80-72 at home to Arizona State in front of a crowd of 6,019.

Grand Canyon led by 11 early in the fourth quarter but a 15-0 Arizona State run won the game for the Sun Devils.

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Players Mentioned

Keeli Burton-Oliver

Sammy Fatkin

Carmen Gfeller

Haley Huard

Gina Marxen

Alex Pirog

Libby Stump

University of Montana Athletics