Lady Griz land Marxen

Gina Marxen, a two-time All-Big Sky Conference point guard at Idaho, has signed a scholarship offer to play basketball at Montana and will join the Lady Griz next month.

Marxen will have two years of eligibility remaining.

She was voted the Big Sky Freshman of the Year in 2018-19, first-team as a sophomore, second-team as a junior before sitting out the 2021-22 season.

"We are very fortunate to have a person and player of Gina's character and caliber decide that she wanted to play again and that this turned out to be the perfect situation for her," said Lady Griz coach Brian Holsinger.

"From a playing and personal perspective, we were the exact right fit for her. She is a good player who will really help us. She's really excited to get the opportunity to play again and make an impact on a team, and we're really fortunate it's here."

A starter at Idaho from the day she arrived, she put up 22 points on Stanford in her second collegiate game and led the Vandals in assists as a freshman with 135 (4.0/g).

Marxen hit 89 3-pointers her sophomore year, 14 more than any Lady Griz player in program history, and had a 30-point scoring game against Seattle.

As a junior she averaged 12.6 points and finished the season with an assist-to-turnover ratio of 3.2, which ranked fifth in the nation.

Through three seasons at Idaho, she totaled 954 points and 199 3-pointers made. Marxen fills an open role for Montana, which lost point guard Sophia Stiles to graduation.

"She fits someone we need, an experienced guard who can really shoot and doesn't turn the ball over," said Holsinger.

"Her ability to shoot in our system at the point guard position is awesome. It spaces the floor and makes everyone's life easier. You have to be very careful leaving someone like that open."

After three successful years at Idaho, Marxen stepped away from the game and sat out last season.

"I needed to work on myself and take some space," she said. "About a month ago, I decided to enter the (NCAA Transfer Portal) just to see if I could rediscover that love for the game."

Not surprisingly, she had plenty of high-level suitors. It's instructive to note that she was in the process of arranging a visit to North Carolina State when she committed to Montana.

You might remember the Wolfpack going 32-4 last season. Or earning one of four No. 1 seeds in the NCAA tournament. Or their memorable double-overtime loss to Connecticut in a regional final.

Turns out point guards who can both really shoot and really facilitate and distribute are in demand.

"Our goal is to recruit the best players in the country, as good of players as we can get," said Holsinger. "We were very fortunate to beat some high-level programs for Gina to come here.

"That says a lot about what this program is about, this community and what this place offers."

Her decision capped a whirlwind spring for Marxen, who went from not playing last season to discovering the right landing spot in the same conference in which she had previously played.

"I missed it. I talked to my parents, my family, people who have always loved watching me play," said Marxen. "Their support gave me that confidence and curiosity again, that it might be a really good thing for me to play again.

"I started talking to Coach Brian and we just had some great talks. Every phone call was a meaningful conversation, which I really value. I took my visit and got to meet some of the team and see the campus and all the boxes checked off. It just felt like it was the right fit for me."

North Carolina State was one of a number of Power 5 programs that had Marxen on their radar when she posted on social media on Saturday that they could quit their pursuit. She was now a Lady Griz.

"It was pretty serious (with North Carolina State). I was really thinking about it, but after I visited Montana, I felt like it was the perfect fit," said Marxen, who is from Sammamish, Wash.

"A big thing for me was finding a coaching staff that understood me and had an offensive scheme I could fit into and I could find myself making an impact. And it will be a lot easier for my parents to get out and travel to the games."

It will be a mini Eastlake High School reunion next month when Marxen arrives in town and begins summer workouts with her new teammates.

When Marxen was a senior at Eastlake, in 2017-18, Keeli Burton-Oliver was a sophomore, Haley Huard was a freshman. Now they are all Lady Griz.

"It's funny how it worked out. I love Keeli and Haley. It's been a while since I played with them. It's exciting to think about playing with them again," said Marxen.

But it was Sammy Fatkin who connected mostly closely with Marxen when she visited Missoula earlier this month.

Besides competing against each other for years, their stories nearly mirror one another's, with Fatkin, as well, stepping away from the game before finding the right fit in Holsinger's program.

"It goes back to my whole philosophy of giving these young women the best experience possible on the basketball court and off," said Holsinger. "When Gina came to visit, it became obvious this was going to be the best place for her and for us, because it goes both ways."

After being away from the college game for a year and a half, Fatkin returned to the Lady Griz last summer. She was averaging 13.6 points in early February when an ankle injury derailed the end of her season.

She was granted a one-year extension by the NCAA this spring, giving her one more year to play for Montana.

"It was really exciting to hang out with her on my visit. We grew up playing against each other since elementary school and we've had a lot of mutual friends over the years," said Marxen.

"We've had kind of similar experiences, basketball-wise, so it was eye-opening to get her perspective and hear her way of thinking."

Fatkin found what she was looking for in the same program she had already suited up for. Marxen will travel a few hours away but remain in the same conference.

"I'm excited to stay in the Big Sky," she said. "I know a lot of players within the conference, so it will be fun to see everybody again."

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