Lady Griz to face Bobcats, Wildcats on the road

The Montana women's basketball team will conclude a five-game stretch of road games when it plays at Montana State on Saturday afternoon and at Weber State on Monday night.

The Lady Griz (11-4, 3-1 BSC) and Bobcats (8-9, 2-2 BSC) will tip off at 2 p.m. on Saturday inside Brick Breeden Fieldhouse in Bozeman.

Montana will play the Wildcats (5-12, 2-2 BSC) for the second time in less than a month when the teams face each other at 6 p.m. on Monday in Ogden at the Dee Events Center. The Lady Griz won the first matchup 87-71 in Missoula on Dec. 29.

Montana opened its five-game stretch of road games with an 81-60 win at Omaha as part of the Big Sky Conference-Summit League Challenge, then split last week at Northern Colorado and Northern Arizona, falling to the Bears 67-57 and topping the Lumberjacks 89-84.

The Lady Griz will return home next week for games at Dahlberg Arena against Portland State and Sacramento State.

Coverage: Montana's games against Montana State and Weber State will stream on ESPN+. Ace Sauerwein's Lady Griz call can be heard on KGRZ (92.7 FM/1450 AM), KGRZMissoula.com and the Varsity Network.

Game week storylines:

* Montana and Montana State will renew their long history on Saturday with their 117th meeting since the 1974-75 season, as far back as either school's records go.

Montana leads the series 80-36 but Montana State has won 14 of the teams' last 17 meetings and has won the teams' last nine games in Bozeman by an average of more than 14 points per game.

Montana's last win in Bozeman was a 72-65 victory late in the 2013-14 season when the Lady Griz had a starting lineup of Jordan Sullivan, Maggie Rickman, Carly Selvig, Torry Hill and Kellie Cole.

Third-year Montana coach Brian Holsinger has gone 1-3 against Montana State, picking up a 71-57 win at home in his first year in 2021-22.

Montana State swept the series last season, winning 72-63 in Missoula, holding the Lady Griz to 35.2 percent shooting and Montana's starting five to 18 points on 5-of-25 shooting, and 75-73 in Bozeman.

The Bobcats led that game 39-38 early in the third quarter before a 15-2 run ballooned their lead to 54-40.

Still trailing by 11, 65-54, with three minutes remaining, Montana hit four 3-pointers over a two-minute span and had the ball down three late in the game but would get no closer.

Libby Stump, who will miss this year's games with an injury, scored 21 points against Montana State in Missoula last season, 20 in Bozeman to become the first Lady Griz to put up a pair of 20-point scoring games against the Bobcats in a single season since Shannon Cate in 1990-91.

Mack Konig, last year's Big Sky Freshman of the Year, averaged 17.5 points in two games against Montana State last year.

* It will be strength on strength on Saturday. Montana State is 6-1 at home this season and has gone 51-10 at Brick Breeden Fieldhouse since the start of the 2019-20 season.

Montana is 6-1 away from home this season and coming off one of the best of those wins, outscoring Northern Arizona 89-84 in Flagstaff on Saturday, closing the game with a 31-point fourth quarter.

Earlier this season, Montana won 76-71 at Grand Canyon, a team that is now 14-3.

The Lady Griz are averaging 72.9 points away from home this season on 45.9 percent shooting. Montana is averaging more than 9.7 made 3-pointers in those games on 38.4 percent shooting from the arc.

* When third-year coach Brian Holsinger was hired prior to the 2021-22 season, Montana, in its history of the 3-point shot, since it was added in 1987-88, had made more than 12 3-pointers just twice, once in the 2005-06 season, again in the 2007-08 season.

That number is now nine, giving Holsinger-coached teams seven of the top nine 3-point shooting games in program history.

Montana matched the program record with 16 makes in its home win over South Dakota and had 14 makes on Saturday at Northern Arizona, the fourth-most makes in program history.

At their current rate of 9.8 makes per game, the Lady Griz are on pace to hit more than 280 triples by the end of the regular season, which would blow away the current season record of 239, set by the 2013-14 team. Montana had 238 last season.

Montana ranks fourth nationally in threes made per game (9.8), 12th in attempts (26.9/g) and 27th in percentage (.364).

In Montana's four losses, the Lady Griz have shot 25 percent from the arc (22 for 88).

* Because of the nature of the Big Sky schedule this season, Montana on Monday will be facing Weber State for a second time before the Lady Griz have played Portland State, Sacramento State, Idaho or Eastern Washington for the first time.

Montana defeated Weber State 87-71 in Missoula on Dec. 29, with the Lady Griz hitting 13 3-pointers and Maggie Espenmiller-McGraw scoring 21 points on 5-of-8 shooting from the arc.

The Lady Griz led 46-29 at the half.

* Carmen Gfeller, who is the getting the benefit of a fifth year, moved up to ninth on the Montana career scoring list last week, passing both Ann Lake and Marti Leibenguth. Gfeller has scored 1,393 career points.

If Gfeller scores eight or more points on Saturday, she will move past three more former Lady Griz standouts: Lauren Cooper, McKenzie Johnston and Katie Edwards. She is less than 80 points from passing Katie Baker and Lisa McLeod and moving into fourth on the list, where she'll likely top out.

(Gina Marxen, also a fifth-year player, is just ahead of Gfeller with 1,427 career points. She scored a bulk of those, 954 of them, in three years at Idaho.)

Gfeller is enjoying her most consistent scoring of her career, with 18 or 19 points in each of the last four games and 10 or more points in 14 straight games, since scoring four against Gonzaga in the season opener.

Gfeller will be playing in her 121st career game on Saturday and will set a new Montana record by the time the season is done. The program record is 129, set by Jordan Sullivan and Kellie Cole.

At a glance (Montana): The Lady Griz dropped their first game away from home this season, losing at Northern Colorado on Thursday 67-57.

Montana led 36-24 at the half before getting outscored 43-21 over the game's final 20 minutes, when the Lady Griz shot 7 for 27 (.259), the Bears 15 for 24 (.625), including 7 for 9 from the 3-point line.

UNC was a Montana-like 11 for 21 (.524) from the arc while the Lady Griz went 3 for 16, a season low for both 3-pointers made and attempted.

Carmen Gfeller, with 19 points, was Montana's lone player in double figures.

Montana came through with a huge bounce-back win on Saturday at Northern Arizona, putting up 50 second-half points and outscoring the high-scoring Lumberjacks 89-84.

Northern Arizona had been 43-4 when scoring 80 or more points since the 2018-19 season, 28-1 at home before Montana added a loss to both of those records.

Mack Konig scored a career-high 24 points and added seven assists, Gfeller had 18 points, Dani Bartsch collected an 11-point, 14-rebound double-double, her third of the season and seventh of her career, and Gina Marxen added 12 points off the bench.

Montana now has four players averaging in double figures: Gfeller (14.3/g), Maggie Espenmiller-McGraw (11.1/g), Konig (10.2/g) and Marxen (10.1/g), with MJ Bruno (7.9/g), Dani Bartsch (7.5/g) and Macey Huard (7.4/g) helping Montana average 74.3 points on 44.4 percent shooting.

If that shooting percentage remains the same, this would be Montana's best shooting team since the 1997-98 Lady Griz shot 45.2 percent. The Lady Griz have not averaged more than 71 points per game since the 2007-08 team (74.8/g).

At a glance (Montana State): The Bobcats went 20-11 last season, their third straight 20-win season (discounting the 2020-21 COVID year, when MSU still went 17-7). MSU went 13-5 in league to tie for the regular-season championship with Sacramento State and Northern Arizona.

The Hornets and Lumberjacks would go on to play for the Big Sky tournament title while the No. 2 Bobcats were upset by No. 7 Portland State 77-65 in the quarterfinals.

Montana State lost four of its top five scorers from last year, all via transfer. The only returner from that group, Lexi Deden, was lost for the season in November with an injury.

Senior Katelynn Limardo is Montana State's lone player averaging in double figures at 12.9 per game, those points coming on 36.4 percent shooting. Madison Hall, a fifth-year senior who was previously Madison Jackson, is averaging 9.7 points.

The Bobcats are averaging 61.3 points and have cracked 70 points just three times in 17 games, but they are playing their usual pesky defense, holding their opponents to 59.9 points on 37.6 percent shooting.

Only Arizona State (75), Portland (73) and Northern Arizona (88) have reached 70 points against Montana State this season. Outside of the game at NAU last week, Montana State has held its last nine opponents to 61 points or fewer.

During their six-game home winning streak, the Bobcats are allowing just 51 points per game on 33.3 percent shooting.

The last of those two were particularly disruptive performances. Weber State, in a 57-43 loss in Bozeman on Dec. 31, went 14 for 59 (.237). Four days later, the Bobcats held North Dakota State, which would put up 99 points on NAU three days later, to 45 points on 13-of-50 shooting (.260).

Montana State won five straight games, all at home between Dec. 17 and Jan. 3, then lost a competitive 61-53 game at South Dakota State, which was coming off a 110-102 double-overtime road win at Northern Arizona.

After opening league with home wins over Idaho State, 58-56, and Weber State, 57-43, Montana State twice lost on the road last week, 88-73 at Northern Arizona and 58-53 at Northern Colorado, unable to finish off a game the Bobcats led 53-51.

Series history:

* Montana leads the all-time series with Montana State 80-36 and has gone 28-22 against the Bobcats in Bozeman.

* Twelve of those 22 wins have come since the retirement of former Lady Griz coach Robin Selvig following the 2015-16 season.

* Montana State has won 14 of the teams' last 17 matchups, and Montana hasn't won in Bozeman since the 2013-14 season.

* The Bobcats swept the season series last year, winning 72-63 in Missoula, 75-73 in Bozeman. Montana State led for 34:00 of 40 minutes in Missoula, for 37:30 in Bozeman.

At a glance (Weber State): The Wildcats have five wins on the season, second-fewest in the Big Sky, but will take a two-game winning streak into their matchups at Eastern Washington and Idaho this week.

Weber State looked good in sweeping Sacramento State and Portland State at home last week, defeating the Hornets 81-61, the Vikings 89-53.

Jadyn Matthews averaged 23.5 points on 55 percent shooting to earn Big Sky Player of the Week honors on Monday.

Montana defeated Weber State 87-71 in Missoula on Dec. 29, winning the game in the first half when it built a 46-29 halftime lead. The teams played a mostly even second half.

The Lady Griz held Matthews to two points on just four shot attempts, though the Wildcats' other four starters all were in double figures, with Daryn Hickok putting up 21 points, 15 of those in the second half.

Weber State put up a 28-point fourth quarter on 10-of-16 shooting.

Montana put up 87 points on the Wildcats on 46.3 percent shooting and went 13 for 31 (.419) from the 3-point line. The Lady Griz committed just seven turnovers, the lowest this season against a Division I opponent.

Maggie Espenmiller-McGraw scored 21 points, hitting five 3-pointers, Dani Bartsch grabbed 12 rebounds and Carmen Gfeller had a 15-point, 10-rebound double-double.

Mack Konig (14), Gina Marxen (13) and Macey Huard (11) also were in double figures.

Hickok (12.0/g) and Matthews (11.5/g) lead Weber State in scoring for an offense that ranks in the bottom third in the Big Sky in scoring (58.5/g) and shooting (.385) under first-year coach Jenteal Jackson.

Weber State is 4-1 at home this season, its only loss by a score of 61-51 to Kansas City in the Big Sky-Summit Challenge.

Series history:

* Montana leads the all-time series with Weber State 76-15 and has gone 33-10 against the Wildcats in Ogden.

* The Lady Griz have won four straight over the Wildcats and 10 of the teams' last 11 games.

* Montana swept the series last season, winning 67-64 in overtime in Ogden and 65-48 in Missoula.

Montana notes:

* In the national statistics, Maggie Espenmiller-McGraw ranks 33rd in 3-point percentage (.427), Dani Bartsch (9.1/g) and Gina Marxen (2.21) rank 51st in rebounding and assist-to-turnover ratio, respectively.

* The Lady Griz rank second in the Big Sky in scoring (74.3/g) and first in shooting (.444). They also lead the Big Sky in free throw shooting (.771), which ranks 28th nationally.

* Montana leads the Big Sky in rebounding margin (+6.1/g) and has out-rebounded 12 of its 15 opponents this season.

* Dani Bartsch (9.1/g) leads the Big Sky in rebounding. Montana has had just two players average nine or more rebounds for a season since Greta Koss averaged 10.0 in 1996-97. Hollie Tyler averaged 9.3 in 2002-03, Alycia Sims 9.3 in 2015-16.

* Montana has had six different players lead it in scoring this season: Bartsch, Gfeller, Konig, Espenmiller-McGraw, Bruno and Marxen.

* Montana is 11-1 this season when shooting 38 percent or better. The Lady Griz shot 33.9 percent, 37.3 percent and 37.7 percent in losses to Washington State, Colorado State and Northern Colorado.

* Montana went 25 for 30 from the free throw line last week at Northern Colorado and Northern Arizona.

* Saturday's 89-84 victory at Northern Arizona marked only the third time in program history that Montana has won while allowing 84 or more points in regulation. Montana won 90-87 at Idaho State in 2006-07 and 94-86 at home against Sacramento State in 2014-15.

* Thursday's loss at Northern Colorado was the first time this season in eight games that Montana fell after leading at the half. … Saturday's 89-84 win at Northern Arizona improved Montana to 4-0 this season in games decided by five or fewer points.

* Montana is playing five straight regular-season true road games for the first time since 2018-19 and for only the third time since 1978-79.

Around the Big Sky Conference:

* Updated NET national rankings: EWU (68), UM (99), MSU (124), NAU (133), UI (146), UNC (182), ISU (211), WSU (254), PSU (324) and SAC (344).

* Eastern Washington, at 3-0, is the only unbeaten in league. The Eagles are 13-3 overall and have won seven straight games. EWU's three losses have been 71-63 at UC Irvine, 82-80 at home to Gonzaga and 78-70 at Cal.

* Montana (3-1), Northern Arizona (2-1), Idaho (2-1) and Northern Colorado (2-1) each have one loss.

* At the other end, Portland State and Sacramento State are both 0-4 and seeking their first league win.

* Thursday in the Big Sky: WSU at EWU, ISU at UI, NAU at PSU, UNC at SAC

* Saturday in the Big Sky: UM at MSU, ISU at EWU, WSU at UI, UNC at PSU, NAU at SAC

Upcoming: After five straight games away from home, Montana will get Portland State and Sacramento State at Dahlberg Arena next week.

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Players Mentioned

Dani Bartsch

MJ Bruno

Maggie Espenmiller-McGraw

Carmen Gfeller

Macey Huard

Mack Konig

Gina Marxen

Libby Stump

University of Montana Athletics