Lady Griz wrap up home schedule

The Montana women's basketball team will play its final home games of the season this week when it hosts Southern Utah and Montana State at Dahlberg Arena.

The Lady Griz (16-9, 9-7 BSC), in a three-way tie for fourth in the Big Sky standings, will host the Thunderbirds (16-10, 12-5 BSC) on Thursday at 7 p.m. and Montana State (18-10, 13-4 BSC) at 7 p.m. on Saturday.

Montana will close out the regular season next week with games at Northern Colorado and Sacramento State on Wednesday and Friday. The Big Sky tournament starts on Monday, March 7, in Boise with first-round games.

Happenings I: "The House That Rob Built," the documentary about former Lady Griz coach Robin Selvig that was put together by one of his former players, Megan Harrington, will be on sale on both Thursday and Saturday.

DVDs can be purchased before the game or at halftime at a table near the student entrance. A portion of the sales will go toward the Lady Griz Hoop Club.

Happenings II: Thursday will double as Montana's cancer-awareness game. There will be pink reminders and opportunities for fans to bring attention to the cause.

Happenings III: Saturday will double as Senior Day for Abby Anderson, Sammy Fatkin, Kylie Frohlich, Nyah Morris-Nelson and Sophia Stiles. The five players will be recognized before the game.

Coverage: Both games will stream on ESPN+, with Paul Yarbrough calling Thursday's game, Riley Corcoran Saturday's game. Both can be heard on KMPT 99.7 FM/930 AM or at 930kmpt.com.

Saturday's game will have additional coverage on SWX, with Zach Kaplan and former Lady Griz Krista Redpath calling the action.

What's at stake (Montana): The Lady Griz are tied for fourth in the Big Sky standings with Sacramento State and Northern Arizona with two weeks of regular-season games remaining. Of the three teams sitting ahead of Montana, two will be in town this week. The other is Idaho State.

While two one-point losses on the road to Northern Arizona and Idaho will keep Montana from being on the short list of teams playing for a championship the next week-plus, the Lady Griz can upset the order near the top and play itself into a top-five finish and a bye in Boise with a strong close.

What's at stake (Southern Utah): The Thunderbirds are in third place in the Big Sky, one game behind co-leaders Idaho State and Montana State, and SUU, which split its season series with Montana State, gets Idaho State in Cedar City next Wednesday before closing with Weber State on Friday.

The Thunderbirds are just 4-4 over their last eight games and haven't won consecutive games since January. They roughed up Northern Arizona at home on Monday night 90-67, shooting 54.7 percent overall and going 12 for 23 from the arc.

What's at stake (Montana State): Plenty. The Bobcats own a seven-game winning streak over the Lady Griz, their longest in the deep history between the two programs, and have won three straight in Missoula for the first time.

In the bigger picture, Montana State is in contention to win its fourth Big Sky title in the last seven seasons. With three league games remaining, MSU is tied atop the league standings with Idaho State at 13-4.

Like Montana, Montana State closes with Sacramento State and Northern Colorado on the road next week, no easy trip. ISU hosts Northern Arizona on Thursday, Portland State on Saturday, then plays at Southern Utah on Wednesday.

Trending (Montana): Slightly up. The Lady Griz hit a lull after Sammy Fatkin was injured against Idaho State on Feb. 5. Montana responded with a big-time win at Southern Utah but then lost back-to-back road games at Northern Arizona and Eastern Washington, both primarily because of slow starts.

Montana pulled out a tight 76-73 home win over Idaho on Thursday and picked up an expected road win at Portland State on Saturday to make it two straight. The Lady Griz gave up a 14-point lead they held late in the third quarter on Monday and lost 70-69 at Idaho.

Montana is learning to live without Fatkin in the lineup. The Lady Griz have shot 48.2, 53.6 and 46.3 percent the last three games, three of their four best shooting performances since Christmas.

Montana has also been +40 on the boards the last three games but also has had 15 or more turnovers the last five games, costly when the three losses during that stretch have come by a total of eight points.

Trending (Southern Utah): Even. The Thunderbirds ended January on a three-game winning streak and with an 8-1 league record, but it's been up and down since February arrived, with four wins and four losses.

There was a 70-60 overtime home win over Montana State but also a 65-47 road loss to MSU, when SUU matched a season low for points scored. There were 24- and 23-point home wins over Northern Colorado and Northern Arizona, but also a 19-point road loss at Idaho.

Trending (Montana State): Steady. The Bobcats are finally getting a breather after playing 13 games between Jan. 17 and Monday's win at Portland State. Montana State went 11-2 during that stretch, with losses at Southern Utah in overtime and 76-69 at home to Eastern Washington last week.

MSU bounced back from that surprising home loss to the Eagles, a game the Bobcats led by 11 entering the fourth quarter in a facility in which they had been 12-1 this season, with a sound thumping of Southern Utah at home on Saturday, 65-47, and Monday's 82-57 road win at Portland State.

Who to watch for (Montana): Fatkin might be back this week. And she might not. She might be back next week. And she might not. In her absence, the team's Big Three of Sophia Stiles, Abby Anderson and Carmen Gfeller have carried extra load.

In Thursday's home win over Idaho, Stiles scored a career-high 27 points and added six rebounds and four assists.

In Saturday's win at Portland State, Anderson had 12 points, eight assists, six blocks and two steals.

In Monday's loss at Idaho, Gfeller hit four 3-pointers in six attempts and finished with 20 points, one off her season high. She also grabbed 10 rebounds, giving her two double-doubles in the last three games.

Who to watch for (Southern Utah): SUU's balance makes the Thunderbirds difficult to zero in on, with the team's top seven players averaging between 7.5 and 10.6 points. Redshirt senior Darri Dotson leads the team in both scoring (10.6/g) and rebounding (8.1/g).

Who to watch for (Montana State): Point guard Darian White is on the three-player watch list for league MVP, along with Sacramento State's Lianna Tillman, whose candidacy took a hit last week with home losses to Weber State and Idaho State, and ISU's Estefania Ors.

She averages 15.4 points and 5.0 rebounds with a team-high 119 assists and gets to the line nearly six times per game. She has hit just 18 3-point attempts, low for a player with the ball in her hands as much as it is, on 26.5 percent shooting from the arc.

Kola Bad Bear is averaging 10.6 points and 5.5 rebounds.

Series history (Montana-Southern Utah):

* Montana leads the series 19-4 and is 10-0 against the Thunderbirds in Missoula. Five of the teams' last six games at Dahlberg Arena have been decided by 10 points or fewer.

* Southern Utah had won three of four against Montana before the Lady Griz won in Cedar City earlier this season.

* Montana won 17 of the teams' first 18 matchups, dating back to meeting No. 1 in 1989.

The first meeting: Montana 69, Southern Utah 64 – Playing its first game without Sammy Fatkin, the Lady Griz had their best top-to-bottom team victory of the season, with all nine players scoring and the bench adding 28 big points.

Montana led for nearly 36 minutes but gave up the lead on three occasions in the fourth quarter. The Lady Griz took the lead for good on a 3-pointer by Carmen Gfeller with 3:08 to go.

In a battle of the Big Sky's top two rebounding teams, Montana came out on top 46-36.

Series history (Montana-Montana State):

* Montana leads the all-time series 79-34, but that number was built on a dominance between 1975 and 1998, when the Lady Griz went 50-10 against the Bobcats.

* Montana still won more than it lost in the series between 1998 and Robin Selvig's retirement following the 2015-16 season, but since then MSU coach Tricia Binford has assumed the crown.

* Binford went 7-1 and 2-0 against former Lady Griz coaches Shannon Schweyen and Mike Petrino, and won her first matchup against first-year Montana coach Brian Holsinger last month.

* Montana is 47-10 at home against Montana State, through seven of those 10 MSU wins have come since 2010, including the last three and four of the last five.

* The last four matchups have been won by Montana State by a combined total of 62 points. … Montana's last win in the series was an 87-63 victory at home in 2017-18.

The first meeting: Montana State 73, Montana 59 – The Lady Griz lost for the eighth straight time in Bozeman and looked out of sorts from the opening tip, turning the ball over the first two possessions of the game and trailing the final 36 minutes.

It was somehow a four-point game at the half, 34-30, but MSU pulled away in the third quarter and took a 56-43 lead into the final period, where the advantage reached 21 points before a late push by Montana cut the final margin to 14.

Montana held Darian White and Kola Bad Bear to 20 points on 5-of-22 shooting, but the deep ball proved to be particularly destructive, with MSU going 9 for 17 from the arc, its best percentage in a game this season.

Taylor Janssen hit all four of her 3-pointers off the bench, Katelynn Limardo went 2 for 2, Ashley Van Sickle 1 for 1.

Sammy Fatkin led both teams with 24 points, Abby Anderson added 10, but nobody else had more than five. Carmen Gfeller had five points on just four shot attempts, Sophia Stiles had four points on 0-of-9 shooting but did grab a game-high 10 rebounds.

Summary:

Montana was close to taking a three-game winning streak into this week's home contests, but the Lady Griz fell at Idaho on Monday afternoon, 70-69, their first loss in 14 games this season when scoring 62 or more points.

Montana built a 14-point lead late in the third quarter, but Idaho scored the final six points of the third period, then went 9 for 14 in the fourth to rally back for the victory.

Up 70-69, Idaho took possession of the ball with 34.7 seconds left. The big question was whether or not Montana would foul. A decade ago the Lady Griz would have. Now, with the ability to advance the ball on a rebound and timeout, they opted to defend it out.

"I just felt like anything around five seconds is enough time to get a really good shot when you can advance it," coach Brian Holsinger said. "We were willing to play it out. It just felt like it was the right play."

Idaho played out the shot clock and took a wild, low-percentage shot that Abby Anderson volleyball-spiked for a blocked shot. Montana grabbed the ball out of the air and took a dribble, which negated the chance to advance it.

Instead, the Lady Griz ended up inbounding the ball near midcourt with 2.2 seconds left. A rushed shot at the 3-point line by Sophia Stiles was off the mark.

Four games prior to that, Montana lost 60-59 at Northern Arizona on another wild final few seconds.

Every team has ifs, but if the Lady Griz had won those games, they'd be 11-5 in league and looking for ways to win a Big Sky title instead of ways to stay in the top five and get a bye.

"We're literally two plays from being 11-5 and being right in the thick of the Big Sky title race," said Holsinger. "So you have to have some perspective. I like where our team's at. We're in a good spot. We've begun to adjust without Sammy.

"Losses are horrible. I hate to lose, but if they teach you the right things and lead you down the path to success, they are worth it."

While the Montana State game will always be the big one on the schedule, in the big picture Thursday's game is huge in its own right. A higher-ranked team playing where Montana is 10-3, with the Lady Griz needing to erase Monday's loss and make a late-season surge toward Boise.

"That's the only game that matters. We need to play well on Thursday against Southern Utah," said Holsinger. "We'll be ready for Saturday, but we're really focused on Southern Utah. The game Thursday is really important for us.

"We've been good at home, and I expect us to be really good this week. I'm excited to see how playing five out of six road games has helped us grow."

Monday's loss leaves Montana with 16 wins, four away from what would be the team's first 20-win season since 2015-16, the program's final year under Robin Selvig.

When the Lady Griz went into the Christmas break 9-2, 20 seemed like it would be a blow-by mile marker on this season's return to greatness. Then illnesses and injuries, those things that happen to most every team, forced their way into the equation. As did the Big Sky's balance and depth.

"You try to keep perspective in all of this," said Holsinger. "We had a really fast start, which throws perspective out the window sometimes. Some of these things are normal and part of the process.

"I'm excited where we're at. I would have loved to win a couple of these close games, but if it gets us to the point where we're in Boise with a chance to compete for something, we can beat anybody if we play well."

Beyond the contests themselves, there is Thursday's Pink Game and Saturday's Senior Day.

"We have a Pink Game, when we're going to honor cancer survivors, which is a big deal in women's basketball, and then Saturday is Senior Day, when we'll honor the five seniors we have and celebrate what they've done in their careers and for this program," said Holsinger.

"It's a big weekend for Lady Griz fans to come out and celebrate these young women and what they've accomplished."

Montana notes:

* The Lady Griz lead the Big Sky in field goal percentage defense (.354) and rank second in rebounding margin, behind Southern Utah (+6.8/g).

* Montana ranks in the top 30 nationally in defensive rebounds (7th, 30.3/g), field goal percentage defense (17th), blocked shots (23rd, 4.9/g) and personal fouls per game (27th, 13.7/g).

* Abby Anderson, who has 10 blocked shots the last three games, now ranks 21st nationally at 2.2 per game. … Her block in the closing seconds at Idaho on Monday was the 200th of her career.

* Sophia Stiles ranks first in the Big Sky in assist-to-turnover ratio (1.9), fourth in assists (4.3/g).

* Monday's loss at Idaho was just the team's second (12-2) this season when leading at the half and its first (14-1) when holding a lead with five minutes remaining.

* Sophia Stiles went 18 for 31 in two games against Idaho and scored 41 points.

* Abby Anderson has shot 11 for 18 the last three games and dished out 13 assists, with a career-high eight at Portland State on Saturday. Anderson's six blocks at PSU were a season high and one off her career high.

* Sophia Stiles has scored in double figures in five straight games to match her career-high streak, set last season.

* In Montana's win at Southern Utah, Kylie Frohlich had 13 points and nine rebounds off the bench. Both are season highs.

* Carmen Gfeller's four 3-pointers on Monday, on six attempts, were a career high. She is 15 for 24 the last two games, 5 of 8 from the arc.

* Gfeller had a double-double in both games against Idaho. She has six this season, seven for her career.

* Katerina Tsineke is 8 for 11 off the bench the last three games, since Nyah Morris-Nelson was made a starter. … Tsineke's five assists at Portland State were a season high.

* Kyndall Keller is 15 for 16 from the free throw line this season, 43 of 46 for her career. … Dani Bartsch is 13 for 18 from the field the last six games.

* Montana has outshot its last six opponents. … Montana's 24 points allowed in the fourth quarter to Idaho in a game the Vandals won by one matched the most points allowed in a period this season.

Around the Big Sky Conference:

* With two weeks of regular-season games remaining, Idaho State and Montana State sit atop the league standings at 13-4. Southern Utah is third at 12-5.

* Montana, Sacramento State and Northern Arizona are all tied for fourth at 9-7. One (or more) of those teams will be playing on opening day in Boise.

* Idaho, with five games remaining, can still win its way into the top five, considering it gets Sacramento State and Northern Colorado at home this week, then games against winless Portland State next Monday and Wednesday before closing at Northern Arizona.

* Portland State is 0-15 in league and could be the first team to go winless since Weber State went 0-20 in 2012-13.

* Since defeating Montana on Jan. 1 to complete the Montana-Montana State sweep in Ogden, the Wildcats have gone 2-11 to fall to 10th in the standings ahead of only Portland State.

* Thursday schedule: SUU at UM, NAU at ISU, UNC at EWU, SAC at UI

* Game to monitor: Sacramento State at Idaho – The Hornets had won nine of 10 and were at home last week, but, with a chance to keep surging up the standings, they lost to both Weber State and Idaho State. The Vandals, who lost 76-73 in overtime at Sacramento State earlier, have won three of four.

* Saturday schedule: MSU at UM, PSU at ISU, NAU at WSU, SAC at EWU, UNC at UI

Upcoming: Montana will play at Northern Colorado at 6 p.m. next Wednesday, at Sacramento State at 8 p.m. (MT) next Friday. Then it will be off to Boise.

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Players Mentioned

Abby Anderson

Dani Bartsch

Sammy Fatkin

Kylie Frohlich

Carmen Gfeller

Kyndall Keller

Nyah Morris-Nelson

Sophia Stiles

Katerina Tsineke

University of Montana Athletics