Lady Griz get Vandals, Vikings, Vandals

The Montana women's basketball team will play three games in five days, two on the road, as the schedule flips to the back half of February, which means March nears.

The Lady Griz (14-8, 7-6 BSC) will host Idaho (6-15, 5-7 BSC) on Thursday at 7 p.m. at Dahlberg Arena before hitting the road once again.

Montana will play at Portland State (5-15, 0-12 BSC) on Saturday at 3 p.m. (MT), then travel to Moscow for a second matchup against the Vandals on Monday at 3 p.m. (MT).

Both road games are rescheduled contests that came from earlier postponements.

Montana is scheduled to host Southern Utah and Montana State next week in its final home games of the season. The Lady Griz will finish their regular-season schedule the first week of March with games at Northern Colorado and Sacramento State.

The team then will head to Boise for the Big Sky Conference tournament, which opens on Monday, March 7.

The Lady Griz enter this busy stretch on a two-game losing streak and with a 2-4 record over their last six games. Montana is 5-6 since taking a glowing 9-2 record into the Christmas break.

At a glance (Montana): The Lady Griz enter Thursday's game on a two-game losing streak, the first loss coming 60-59 at Northern Arizona on a last-second three-point play last Thursday.

On Monday night, Montana lost 63-57 at Eastern Washington, the first game this season the Lady Griz never held a lead.

The Eagles, who rank in the bottom third of the Big Sky in rebounding margin, became just the fourth team this season to outrebound the Lady Griz, who also had 17 turnovers for the second straight game.

Montana has played the last three games without Sammy Fatkin, who was injured in the team's home loss to Idaho State. Fatkin is averaging a team-best 13.5 points per game in league.

Montana shot better than 40 percent in nine of 11 games prior to Christmas. In the 11 games since the break, the Lady Griz have shot better than 40 percent just once, at home against Portland State.

At a glance (Idaho): The Vandals will play eight games in 16 days starting with Thursday night's contest in Missoula, with two remaining against both Montana and Portland State.

Idaho will play five straight at home beginning with Saturday's game against Eastern Washington.

After opening the season with a 95-46 home win over Lewis-Clark State on Nov. 9, the Vandals went on a 10-game losing streak that took them to 2022.

Since the calendar flipped to a new year, Idaho is 5-5 and playing, at least at times, more like the team that was picked third in the preseason polls.

Idaho won by 21 at Eastern Washington, swept Weber State and won at Northern Colorado. But the Vandals also gave up 96 points to Montana State in a home loss and fell 103-68 at Idaho State last week.

In its most recent game, Idaho won 82-73 at Weber State on Saturday. The Vandals shot 51.1 percent and had five players in double figures.

Louise Forsyth, a graduate transfer from Gonzaga, is averaging 12.8 points in her first season at Idaho. Beyonce Bea, first-team All-Big Sky last season and this year's preseason MVP, is averaging 12.8 points and 7.7 rebounds.

Idaho is led by 14th-year coach Jon Newlee, who is no stranger to playing inside Dahlberg Arena. He previously coached at Idaho State.

Series history (Montana-Idaho):

* Montana has gone 43-15 all-time against Idaho, with a 27-3 record in Missoula and a 16-11 record in Moscow.

* The Vandals have won seven of the teams' last nine matchups. Two of Idaho's three wins in Missoula have come during that stretch, in 2016-17 and 2017-18.

* Montana has won two straight at home over Idaho, by a combined 12 points. … Idaho won last year's game, 92-72 in Moscow. The Lady Griz led 45-41 at the break but got outscored 51-27 in the second half.

* Idaho coach Jon Newlee, in his 14th year at Idaho after spending six as head coach at Idaho State, is 10-22 in his career against Montana. He went 2-12 against the Lady Griz at Idaho State and is 8-10 as coach of the Vandals. He opened 3-20 against Montana. He is 7-2 since.

At a glance (Portland State): The Vikings will take a 10-game losing streak into their Thursday contest at Northern Arizona. Like Idaho, Portland State also will play eight games in 16 days to close the regular season.

Of PSU's 12 league losses, only two have come by fewer than 10 points. Portland State's last game, on Feb. 7, was a 93-45 setback at Northern Colorado when the Vikings shot 27.7 percent, went 4 for 28 from the arc and got outrebounded 48-28.

Portland State hasn't defeated a Division I opponent since Dec. 10, when it beat Pepperdine at home, 75-71.

The Vikings have four starters averaging in double figures: Esmeralda Morales (11.5/g), Jada Lewis (10.6/g), Alaya Fitzgerald (10.5/g) and Savannah Dhaliwal (10.3/g). Only Dhaliwal, at .474, shoots better than 38 percent from that group.

The first meeting: Montana 93, Portland State 57: The Lady Griz scored 21 or more points in every quarter and outscored the Vikings 50-27 in the second half for their largest margin of victory over PSU since 2015.

Haley Huard led Montana with 18 points on 6-of-9 shooting from 3-point range. The Lady Griz hit 12 3-pointers, outrebounded Portland State 46-26 and had 17 assists against nine turnovers.

Alaya Fitzgerald led the Vikings with 12 points.

Series history (Montana-Portland State):

* Montana has gone 51-22 against Portland State and 19-14 on PSU's home floor but has lost four straight in Portland by an average of nearly 18 points.

* The Lady Griz have won the last two matchups, both of which came in Missoula. Saturday's game will be Montana's first at PSU since January 2020.

Summary:

First-year Montana coach Brian Holsinger used the term "soul-searching" after Monday's disheartening loss at then five-win Eastern Washington, which came after a stomach-punch loss at Northern Arizona, a game the Lady Griz seemed to win before having that victory taken away by the Lumberjacks.

"Tough times test your character. It's easy when things are going well. When things aren't, when you lose a tough one at NAU and you just don't play well at all at Eastern and lose, you figure out who you are," he said on Tuesday.

"Hard things come in life. How do you handle those? That's what our focus is, how we're handling them. It's hard, but you fight through them. That's what makes a good program."

The losses came after Montana had its best post-Christmas win, a shorthanded 69-64 victory at Southern Utah that knocked the Thunderbirds out of first place.

Montana was done in at Northern Arizona not by Khiarica Rasheed's last-second heroics but by a slow start. The Lady Griz shot 2 for 16 in the first quarter, 6 for 31 in the first half.

Montana would fight back and take three fourth-quarter leads, the last on a Sophia Stiles floater that made it 59-57 with 0.8 seconds left. Then Rasheed scored off an inbounds pass from Nina Radford to flip the storyline from comeback win to heartbreaking loss.

"It was the 39 minutes before that is why we ended up losing that game, not the last 0.8 seconds," Holsinger said. "There were so many mistakes made early that could have been fixed and we wouldn't have been in that situation. It shouldn't have come down to that point."

Montana responded with some of its best practices of the season but then came out flat on Monday in Cheney. The Lady Griz fell behind 7-0 and never recovered.

"The biggest thing we have to address is our urgency and our toughness," said Holsinger. "When we play with urgency and toughness, whether we execute or not, we're better.

"You have to bring that no matter what. It's why we won at Southern Utah and why we lost at Eastern Washington."

It's led to the soul-searching that Holsinger mentioned after Monday's loss.

"Everybody goes through moments in a season like we're having right now," he said. "Ours happens to be in a stretch when you don't want it to be, unless you can turn it around and get it right here at the end.

"Until the end at Eastern, they played tougher than we did. They wanted the ball more, they played with more enthusiasm, they played with more confidence. We have to address that, and we will. We have a bunch of great kids, a bunch of great coaches."

That Montana still has seven league games before Boise is a good thing. More opportunities to make things right. That those seven games come in a 16-day window is where the challenge lies.

"Anytime you play this many games in this many days, it's just unique," Holsinger said. "I'm not used to it, and it's not ideal for what I like to do, but that's the hand you're dealt and you do the best you can."

As for the return of Sammy Fatkin, who could help make things right, Holsinger said, "We miss her, no question. She's our leading scorer in conference and has an aggressive nature that's unique to our team.

"Maybe if it was Boise next week it's a different story. Right now we just want to get her as healthy as we possibly can and then get her back into practice."

Game notes:

* Montana is 9-3 at home this season. Idaho is 3-6 in road games, 3-10 away from Moscow, with four losses in neutral-site games.

* Montana ranks in the top 25 nationally in field goal percentage defense (15th, .352) and blocked shots (25th, 4.8/g).

* The Lady Griz also lead the Big Sky in scoring defense (59.9/g), scoring margin (8.1/g) and 3-point field goal percentage defense (.287).

* Individually, Abby Anderson ranks 30th in blocked shots (2.1/g), Sophia Stiles ranks 31st in assist-to-turnover ratio (2.2) and Carmen Gfeller ranks 57th in free throw percentage (.835).

* Montana lost to Northern Arizona and Eastern Washington despite outshooting both. The Lady Griz have had a better shooting percentage than their opponent in 16 of 22 games this season.

* Montana's loss at Northern Arizona was its first this season in a game decided by five points or fewer. The Lady Griz had been 4-0.

* Montana is 11-0 this season when scoring 62 points or more. Idaho is allowing 71.3 this season, Portland State 70.6.

* Katerina Tsineke has started the last three games in place of Sammy Fatkin.

* Montana's 18 points at the half at Eastern Washington was its lowest scoring half of the season. … Montana scored 40 first-half points at Northern Arizona and Eastern Washington, 76 in the second half.

* Dani Bartsch had her first collegiate double-double at Northern Arizona with 10 points and 10 rebounds. She also had two assists and two blocks against the Lumberjacks.

Around the Big Sky Conference:

* On the strength of three straight wins, Idaho State, the preseason favorite, has moved back atop the Big Sky standings at 12-3. The Bengals have a difficult road trip this week, playing at Northern Colorado and Sacramento State.

* Montana State, at 11-3, is even in the loss column with Idaho State. After hosting Eastern Washington and Southern Utah this week, the Bobcats end the season with four straight on the road.

* Southern Utah, which lost at home to Sacramento State on Saturday, is a game behind first place at 11-4. The Thunderbirds still have to play at Montana and Montana State and get Northern Arizona, Idaho State and Weber State at home.

* Sacramento State has won nine of 10 to surge into the top five in the standings. The only game the Hornets lost in that streak was a game they held a four-point lead with 32 seconds left at Weber State. Sac State plays four of its final six games at home.

* As of today, Northern Arizona, at 8-6, holds down the No. 5 spot in the standings, which would bring a first-round bye. The Lumberjacks still have road games at Idaho State and Southern Utah.

* A lot will change in the next three weeks, but if the tournament opened today, No. 6 Montana would face No. 11 Portland State in a first-round game on Monday night of tournament week. That's the game the Lady Griz played in last season, which turned out to be a loss to Sacramento State.

* Thursday games: UI at UM, EWU at MSU, ISU at UNC, PSU at NAU, WSU at SAC

* Game to monitor: Weber State at Sacramento State – Teams going in opposite directions in the standings. The Hornets have won nine of 10, the Wildcats have lost 10 of 11. Their only win during that stretch? At home over Sacramento State.

* Saturday games: UM at PSU, SUU at MSU, WSU at UNC, EWU at UI, ISU at SAC

* Game to monitor I: Southern Utah at Montana State – It's second place vs. third in a game between teams that played in Cedar City on Thursday. The Thunderbirds ended the Bobcats' eight-game winning streak with a 70-60 overtime win.

* Game to monitor II: Idaho State at Sacramento State – The Big Sky leader against the team nobody seems to be able to handle. When the teams played in Pocatello last month, the Hornets did the improbable and roughed up the Bengals 73-57 on their home court, finishing +21 on the boards.

* Monday games: UM at UI, NAU at SUU, MSU at PSU

* Game to monitor: Northern Arizona at Southern Utah – Another high-stakes, top-five game for the Thunderbirds, who led from start to finish in a 70-61 road win in Flagstaff in early January.

Upcoming: Montana will host Southern Utah and Montana State next Thursday and Saturday as the team's home schedule comes to a close.

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Players Mentioned

Abby Anderson

Dani Bartsch

Sammy Fatkin

Carmen Gfeller

Haley Huard

Sophia Stiles

Katerina Tsineke

University of Montana Athletics