Lady Griz return to league play

The Montana women's basketball team, after taking a break to pick up a pair of wins in the Big Sky Conference-Summit League Challenge, will return to league action this week with matchups against Northern Colorado and Northern Arizona.

The Lady Griz (10-3, 2-0 BSC), who are on a seven-game winning streak, will face the Bears (5-7, 0-1 BSC) at 6 p.m. on Thursday at Bank of Colorado Arena in Greeley and the Lumberjacks (9-5, 1-0 BSC) at 2 p.m. on Saturday at the Walkup Skydome in Flagstaff.

Montana is one game into a five-game stretch of road contests, which began with a win at Omaha on Saturday. The Lady Griz will play at Montana State on Saturday, Jan. 20, and at Weber State on Monday, Jan. 22.

Coverage: Both games this week will stream on ESPN+. The local radio broadcast, with Ace Sauerwein, can be heard on KGRZ (92.7 FM/1450 AM), KGRZMissoula.com and on the Varsity Network.

Big Sky-Summit Challenge recap: Montana went 2-0 in the Big Sky-Summit Challenge with a home win over South Dakota and a road victory at Omaha. Eastern Washington was the only other Big Sky team to collect a pair of wins.

The Lady Griz rallied from a pair of 13-point first-half deficits to knock off South Dakota in Missoula on Wednesday, 74-61. Down 59-55 in the opening minute of the fourth quarter, the Lady Griz ended the game on a 19-2 run while holding the Coyotes to 1-of-14 shooting over the final nine minutes.

Montana matched a program record with 16 made 3-pointers on 44 attempts, 11 more than the program record. Forty-four of Montana's 63 shots in the game came from the 3-point arc.

Dani Bartsch hit a career-best five 3-pointers and scored 17 points, one off her career high, while also grabbing 11 rebounds and adding four steals and two blocks. Carmen Gfeller had 18 points, going 3 for 5 from the 3-point line, and matched a career high with four blocks.

Montana needed no rally on Saturday in its 81-60 road win at Omaha. The Lady Griz led 24-12 after the first quarter, 48-24 at the half and by 16 or more the entire second half.

Gfeller again scored 18 points, again on 7-of-10 shooting, and Gina Marxen and Macey Huard combined to score 26 points off the bench as Montana shot 47.5 percent, its second-best mark of the season against a Division I opponent.

Montana held Omaha, which put up 82 at Eastern Washington three days prior, to more than 15 points below its season average.

Northern Colorado split its Challenge games, both one-point results coming in thrilling finishes.

The Bears lost 81-80 in overtime on Wednesday at Oral Roberts, with the Golden Eagles scoring the game-winning basket with three seconds left. Three days later, UNC won 59-56 at home over Denver, with Hannah Simental hitting a 3-pointer just before the final buzzer.

Northern Arizona lost twice in Challenge games, its defense twice letting the Lumberjacks down.

Hosting South Dakota State on Wednesday, NAU led by 13 points midway through the fourth quarter before the Jackrabbits closed regulation on a 17-4 run to force overtime. One overtime wasn't enough. SDSU never trailed in the second overtime and pulled away for a 110-102 victory.

On Saturday in Fargo, Northern Arizona trailed by one at the half, 38-37, but would allow 61 second-half points to fall 99-73. The Bison went 20 for 28 (.714) in the second half, hitting eight 3-pointers on 12 attempts.

At a glance (Montana): The Lady Griz are on a seven-game winning streak, the team's longest since winning seven in a row in 2015-16, the last of Montana's 38 years under coach Robin Selvig. The Lady Griz have not won eight games in a row since the 2008-09 season.

Montana has built its winning streak using a high-scoring offense and improving defense.

The Lady Griz lead the Big Sky in shooting percentage (.447) by a healthy margin and rank fourth nationally in 3-pointers made (10.0/g). Montana ranks ninth nationally in 3-point attempts (27.2/g) and 26th in 3-point percentage (.367).

Defensively, Montana has lowered its points allowed to 65.3 after holding five of its last seven opponents to 65 points or fewer. The team's last three opponents, Idaho State, South Dakota and Omaha, averaged 58.7 points.

Montana's three final-year players, Carmen Gfeller (13.6), Maggie Espenmiller-McGraw (11.8) and Gina Marxen (10.2), are all averaging more than 10 points per game.

Espenmiller-McGraw leads the Big Sky and ranks 14th nationally in 3-point percentage (.462). Marxen ranks third in the Big Sky in assists (3.9/g) and leads the Big Sky and ranks 28th in assist-to-turnover ratio (2.68). Over the last six games, Marxen has 32 assists and six turnovers.

Bartsch (8.7/g) ranks second in the Big Sky in rebounding, Gfeller ranks sixth in the Big Sky in scoring (13.6/g), second in shooting (.527).

Getting it done on the road: Montana is now 4-0 in road games, 5-0 away from home. The Lady Griz have not been unbeaten away from home this deep into the season since 1987-88 and are unbeaten away from home this deep into the season for only the second time in program history.

In the rankings: Montana is up to 97 in the national NET (NCAA Evaluation Tool) rankings, second in the Big Sky behind only Eastern Washington (65). Montana State (116), Idaho (126) and Northern Arizona (140) are the other league teams in the top 200.

At a glance (Northern Colorado): The Bears, picked sixth in the preseason coaches' poll, are 5-7 and will take a one-game winning streak into their matchup with the Lady Griz after defeating Denver at home on Saturday as part of the Big Sky-Summit Challenge.

UNC has three Division I wins this season, at Omaha, 82-70, at Utah State, 75-57, and at home against Denver, 59-56. Those three teams are currently 11-33. Northern Colorado's other wins have come against Hastings, 86-56, and Northern New Mexico, 96-37.

The Bears have played one league game, a 76-72 loss at Northern Arizona on Dec. 30, a game that was tied with 20 seconds left.

Northern Colorado has a pair of quality scorers in Hannah Simental (15.2/g) and Delaynie Byrne (15.1/g) for a team that is averaging 69.8 points on 43.1 percent shooting. The Bears shoot the 3-point shot (.362) nearly as well as the Lady Griz, ranking 32nd nationally.

Simental ranks third in the Big Sky in scoring, Byrne is fourth in scoring and leads the Big Sky in rebounding (8.8/g). Simental was second-team All-Big Sky two seasons ago, third-team last year. Byrne was honorable mention All-Big Sky last season.

Northern Colorado went 13-18 a year ago and finished ninth in the Big Sky at 5-13 in league. The Bears defeated No. 10 seed Weber State 63-52 in the first round of the Big Sky tournament in Boise before falling to No. 1 Northern Arizona in the quarterfinals, 64-48.

Series history: Montana leads the all-time series with Northern Colorado 22-15 and has gone 10-8 against the Bears in Greeley.

The Lady Griz swept the series last season, winning 82-60 in Missoula and 78-61 in Greeley, overcoming Simental's 27 points. Montana never trailed in the road win, going up 16-2 and leading 44-27 at the half.

Montana has won two straight in the series and five of seven, which followed Northern Colorado's seven straight wins between 2017 and '20.

At a glance (Northern Arizona): The Lumberjacks tied for the Big Sky regular-season title last year at 13-5 with Sacramento State and Montana State, NAU's first since tying with Montana atop the standings at 15-1 in 1997-98.

Northern Arizona lost in the Big Sky title game to the Hornets, 76-63.

Lost from that team were first-team All-Big Sky selection Regan Schenck and second-teamer Montana Oltrogge, but NAU still had the talent to be voted atop this year's preseason media poll. Northern Arizona came in second in the coaches' poll.

Part of that was the offseason additions of Leia Beattie and Grace Beasley, transfers from Montana State who rank third and fourth, respectively, in scoring for a team that has four double-digit scorers and is averaging a Big Sky-best 77.6 points per game.

That the Lumberjacks rank last in the Big Sky in points allowed (74.9/g), a figure that ranks 326th nationally, is secondary for a team that is just fine defeating you by a score of 77-75 as long as it's a victory.

Northern Arizona opened the season with road losses at Oregon and Arizona, and lost at home to Mountain West favorite UNLV, giving NAU a 9-3 record entering the new year, after opening league with a tense 76-72 home win over Northern Colorado on Dec. 30.

The Lumberjacks took two more defeats last week in the Big Sky-Summit Challenge with losses to South Dakota State and North Dakota State, the teams picked first and second in the Summit preseason poll.

Sophomore Sophie Glancey leads Northern Arizona in scoring (12.6/g) on 52.9 percent shooting and rebounding (6.4/g). Emily Rodebaugh (11.9/g), Beattie (10.7/g) and Beasley (10.4/g) also average more than 10 points.

Series history: Montana leads the all-time series with Northern Arizona 62-17 and has gone 26-10 against the Lumberjacks in Flagstaff.

The teams split their games last season, NAU winning in Missoula for the first time since 2007, 76-74. Montana won the rematch in Flagstaff 80-76 in overtime, snapping the Lady Griz' two-game losing streak at NAU.

Montana notes:

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

* After coming back from 13 down to defeat South Dakota last week, Montana now has rallied from down 10 or more to win nine times under third-year coach Brian Holsinger.

* Carmen Gfeller, with 1,356 career points, sits 11th on the Montana career scoring list. With two more points she'll tie Ann Lake for 10th. With five more points she'll move past Marti Leibenguth and alone into ninth place.

* Montana has been good playing from ahead this season. The Lady Griz are 7-0 when leading at the half, 8-0 when holding the lead with five minutes left.

* Montana is 10-1 this season when shooting 40 percent or better, 0-2 when it doesn't. The only outlier was in the opener, when the Lady Griz lost 83-70 to Gonzaga while shooting 41.4 percent.

* Montana has outrebounded 10 of its 13 opponents this season. Its rebounding margin of +6.2 ranks second in the Big Sky behind Northern Colorado (+6.7).

* Carmen Gfeller averaged 18 points on 70 percent shooting in two Big Sky-Summit Challenge games and has been in double digits in a career-best 12 straight games. She has 75 double-figure scoring games for her career.

* Dani Bartsch grabbed 11 rebounds against both South Dakota and Omaha, giving her 15 double-digit rebounding games for her career.

* Macey Huard scored a season-high 14 points at Omaha on 5-of-9 shooting. The last four games she is 13 for 24 (.542).

* Montana's eight 3-pointers at Omaha snapped the Lady Griz' streak of six straight games with 10 or more makes. … Montana's 48 first-half points at Omaha were the most in the first half this season against a Division I opponent.

* Montana has allowed five or fewer second-chance points in three of the last four games.

Upcoming: Montana will play at Montana State on Saturday, Jan. 20, and at Weber State on Monday, Jan. 22.

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Players Mentioned

Dani Bartsch

Maggie Espenmiller-McGraw

Carmen Gfeller

Macey Huard

Gina Marxen

University of Montana Athletics