Butte has never left Brian Holsinger

He and his wife Stacey lived there for only two years but Butte has stuck with Montana women's basketball coach Brian Holsinger more than any other place from his coaching journey.

The six years in Santa Clarita were more about two Washington kids enjoying a carefree, post-collegiate, newlywed life in sunny Southern California than any particular place.

Eight years in Pullman? It was a chance to get his foot in the door in the then Pac-10 and the challenge of turning around a moribund program. Five years in Corvallis was a chance to take it a step further.

But Butte, where he coached at Montana Tech for the 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons? That left a lasting mark that none of the other places did.

"Once you have that connection, once you're a part of the community, they kind of accept you as one of their own," Holsinger said this week, as his team prepares to host Montana Tech on Sunday evening.

"The whole mindset of Butte against everybody, it's so unique. It's such a cool place and the people are so awesome. I've never lived anywhere like it. It was so fun."

It was 14 years after he left Butte that he got the job at Montana, in April 2021. And who was it that filled his phone, his email and his social media with congratulatory messages?

"More people reached out from Butte than anywhere else when I got this job," he said.

After he interviewed for the Montana Tech job back in 2005, he and Stacey headed back to Southern California telling each other, there's no way. There's no way we're going there.

But neither could they stop thinking about it. "It had its charm and was completely different than where we were coming from," Holsinger said.

Where they were coming from is a story in itself.

When Holsinger graduated from Western Washington in 1999, his future was medical school. Instead, a coaching friend convinced him to come to The Master's College for a coaching job that paid $3,000.

For the year.

"I worked in a coffee shop at 4 o'clock in the morning so I wouldn't miss practice in the afternoon and so I could survive," Holsinger said.

After the Holsingers got married, he took a job as an admissions counselor at the school. It paid more and allowed him, if he met his quotas, to leave early and get to practice each afternoon.

By his third year, the school finally anted up and made the assistant coach position full-time, though it still paid less than his job as an admissions counselor. But it was now all basketball all the time.

"Our life was so simple. Had to be. No money. We look back at those times now and just smile," said Holsinger, whose family now has three children and whose life has the usual Division I pressures.

"You never appreciate it like you do after."

They lived in the only place they could afford. You know the type: a rectangular apartment complex, with all the units facing the middle, where there was a pool. "We had the greatest time," he said.

The Master's went 26-3 his second year, won 25 games and made the NAIA national tournament in 2002-03, his fourth year, won 26 games and returned to the national tournament in 2004-05.

"We had some really good players and some really good teams," said Holsinger.

What would be his final team at Master's, in 2004-05, hosted a tournament in Hawaii before Christmas. Its second-day opponent? Montana Tech. Master's won 83-41.

The next year he would be coaching the Orediggers. "My dad called me about Montana Tech," he said.

"We had just found a way to buy a townhouse in this little place, but I think you get an itch to move on. I probably wasn't ready to be a head coach, but when are you really ready? I was 29 years old."

He interviewed in Butte with Montana Tech football coach and athletic director Bob Green and got the job over Karen Weitz, a name you probably don't know but should.

No coach has won more games (691) in Nevada high school basketball history. She has won 13 state titles at Centennial, the last seven.

She is so in demand that when she retired from teaching last spring, the school asked her to perform double duty. So, she now coaches the school's girls' and boys' basketball programs.

"We were comfortable (in Southern California). We'd just bought a townhouse, but we both felt in our hearts that we needed to go," said Holsinger. "We needed to take that step."

His first team went 6-23, 2-12 in the Frontier Conference. That same season, Master's won 28 games and advanced to the NAIA national semifinals, only to lose to eventual champion Union (Tenn.).

"I wasn't a very good coach back then, but that's how you gain experience," he said. "But I could recruit."

He convinced nine new players to come to Butte. His second team opened the season 12-2 and accomplished a program first. In January of that season, the Orediggers were nationally ranked.

He had big dreams for the small school in Butte. His second team traveled to Bozeman early in the season and won at Montana State 66-57 in the Bobcats' season opener.

Emboldened, he set his sights on the other one. Montana. The Lady Griz. Robin Selvig. What can he say? He had the arrogance of youth, the belief that he could do the impossible.

"I can get recruits away from them. Let's get better than they are. That was my attitude at the time," Holsinger said. "I quickly found out how strong the bond between the state and Robin was.

"As soon as Robin was on the phone with somebody, it was done. It was amazing. I had no idea the Lady Griz meant so much to the state. The program had an aura about it that was like nothing I'd ever seen."

He never got the chance to take on Montana while he was at Montana Tech but he did in his first season at Washington State, in 2007-08.

Final from Dahlberg Arena: Montana 74, Washington State 54 as the Cougars were held to 31.8 percent shooting.

Selvig would continue coaching the Lady Griz through the 2015-16 season before retiring after 38 years and an 865-286 record.

In the five seasons between Selvig retiring and Holsinger taking over the Lady Griz, the program was 16 games under .500. Holsinger accepted the job knowing what his charge was.

Montana won 19 games last season in its first year under Holsinger, the most wins for the program since Selvig won 20 in his final campaign.

As Holsinger gets things rolling at his fifth school, some of his previous stops just mean a little more to him these days.

"I loved that place," he says of Montana Tech and Butte. "They gave me my first chance. We loved our time there."

Game notes:

* Montana and Montana Tech will tip off at 6 p.m. on Sunday, the later start time to allow the facility to transition from Saturday graduation to Sunday basketball.

* Montana Tech, which is counting Sunday's game as an exhibition, is 2-6 under first-year coach Jeff Graham.

* Graham is the former coach at Belt High. His girls' basketball teams went 358-42 and won six Class C state titles. He also coached the school's football and track and field teams.

* Sunday will be the 10th regular-season meeting between Montana and Montana Tech. The Lady Griz are 9-0 against the Orediggers, 5-0 in Missoula.

* The teams played seven times in the late 70s and early 80s, then again during the 2007-08 and 2011-12 seasons.

* Montana Tech opened its season with a home win over Dickinson State, 61-59, and also has a road win at Walla Walla, 78-66.

* The Orediggers lost an exhibition game at Idaho State 63-39, getting held to 30.4 percent shooting and forced into 25 turnovers by the Bengals.

* Junior Tavia Rooney, a graduate of Broadwater High, leads Montana Tech in scoring (11.8/g) and rebounding (7.3/g).

* Montana Tech has in-state players from Belt, Bozeman, Butte, Florence, Helena, Kalispell, Missoula, Plentywood, Saco, Savage, Townsend and Whitewater.

* The Orediggers went 13-19 last season, 3-12 in the Frontier. They were picked fifth out of six teams in this year's preseason poll, behind Carroll, Montana Western, Rocky Mountain and Providence.

* Montana enters Sunday's game with a record of 3-6 after winning its first road game of the season on Sunday, 76-60 at South Dakota.

* The Lady Griz trailed 20-12 after the first quarter but outscored the Coyotes 30-6 in the second quarter and held the lead the final 27 minutes for their first-ever win over South Dakota.

* Super sub Libby Stump, a freshman, led Montana with 16 points off the bench on 7-of-12 shooting. She scored 10 of those points in the critical second quarter.

* Stump has led Montana, or tied for the team lead, in scoring four times, most on the team. She has reached double-figure scoring four of the last five games while shooting 52.2 percent.

* Sammy Fatkin added 15 points, five assists, four rebounds and two steals, Keeli Burton-Oliver 12 points on 5-of-9 shooting and eight rebounds as Montana played without point guard Gina Marxen.

* Montana shot 48.3 percent, its second-best performance of the season behind the 50 percent it shot in its home win over North Dakota.

* Montana held South Dakota to 33.9 percent shooting, 30.2 percent over the final three quarters. It was the best defensive performance this season by the Lady Griz against a Division I opponent.

* Montana's first seven Division I opponents shot 43.4 percent against the Lady Griz.

* Montana has shot 30 for 63 (.476) from the 3-point line the last three games.

* Montana has gone 89 for 112 (.795) from the free throw line the last eight games, since going 13 for 25 against North Dakota State in the opener in a two-point loss.

* Montana had 17 assists, 15 turnovers at South Dakota, its first positive assist-to-turnover ratio of the season against a Division I opponent.

* The Lady Griz outrebounded the Coyotes on Sunday 40-31. Montana's margin of +9 was its best of the season against a Division I opponent.

* In a note that will make the defensive-minded Holsinger cringe, Montana is 3-0 when scoring 70 points or more this season, 0-6 when scoring fewer than 70.

* Dani Bartsch matched career highs at South Dakota in assists (3) and steals (3). … Haley Huard is 6 for 11 (.545) from the 3-point line the last two games.

* Montana will close out its pre-Christmas schedule with a game at Gonzaga next Wednesday night in Spokane. The Bulldogs are ranked No. 23 nationally.

* Gonzaga, which opens WCC play with home games against BYU and San Diego on Saturday and Monday, are 9-2, with losses to Marquette and Stanford.

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Players Mentioned

Dani Bartsch

Keeli Burton-Oliver

Sammy Fatkin

Haley Huard

Gina Marxen

Libby Stump

University of Montana Athletics