Lady Griz get their shot at unbeaten Gophers

The Montana women's basketball team, riding a two-game winning streak, will get a chance to face an unbeaten opponent from the Big Ten when it plays at Minnesota on Sunday afternoon.

The Lady Griz (3-2) and Golden Gophers (6-0) will tip off at 1 p.m. (MT) at Williams Arena in Minneapolis.

Montana faced a similar situation this past Sunday, hosting then 4-0 Washington of the Big Ten. The Lady Griz knocked off the Huskies 82-68 in Missoula while shooting 56.9 percent.

Points will be harder to come by on Sunday, which tends to be the case when facing a Dawn Plitzuweit-coached team. The Gophers are allowing just 47.2 points on 35.5 percent shooting this season.

Minnesota held UMass-Lowell and Oregon State in the 30s and no team has managed to score more than 56 points against the Gophers through six games this season.

Montana played South Dakota twice in back-to-back seasons while Plitzuweit was coaching the Coyotes. Facing two loaded South Dakota teams that would go 58-8 during the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons, Montana lost 64-41 in Missoula and 96-64 in Vermillion.

Plitzuweit, who won a Division II national championship at Grand Valley State in 2005-06, spent six seasons at South Dakota. She turned that success into the job at West Virginia, where she spent just one season (2022-23) before returning to the Midwest. She is in her second season at Minnesota.

Montana, which won 71-59 at North Dakota on Thursday night, will have a quick turnaround after facing the Gophers. The Lady Griz will host Evergreen State on Tuesday at 7 p.m., the team's final game of November.

Montana will play only four games in December, against North Dakota State and South Dakota State in the Big Sky Conference-Summit League Challenge and Michigan State and Tulsa in the West Palm Beach Classic before Christmas. Big Sky plays opens in early January.

Coverage: Sunday's game will stream on Big Ten Plus. Ace Sauerwein's local call can be heard on KGRZ 1450 AM/92.7 FM and KGRZMissoula.com.

Twin Cities (area) homecoming: Montana guards Macy Donarski and Aby Shubert are getting a chance to play close to home on Sunday. Donarski is from La Crosse, Wis., less than three hours down the Mississippi River from Minneapolis. Shubert is from Kasson, Minn., 90 minutes south of the Twin Cities.

Earlier this month, the Lady Griz signed Rae Ehrman, of Eden Prairie, Minn., to a scholarship contract. She'll be a Montana freshman next season.

Big Ten game 2 of 3: Montana will play three games against Big Ten opponents during its nonconference schedule. The first came on Sunday, an 82-68 home win over Washington. Minnesota will be Game No. 2.

The Lady Griz will face Michigan State in Florida before Christmas at the West Palm Beach Classic. The Spartans, like the Gophers, are 6-0 to start the season.

After Sunday's win over the Huskies, Montana is now 5-3 against teams who were members of the Big Ten at the time the Lady Griz played them.

The Lady Griz have faced Illinois (1-0), Iowa (1-1), Minnesota (1-0), Ohio State (0-1), Purdue (0-1), Washington (1-0) and Wisconsin (1-0). The games against Purdue and Wisconsin came in the NCAA tournament.

Sunday will be only the third time Montana has played a true road game against a Big Ten opponent. The Lady Griz won 85-74 at Wisconsin in the first round of the 1992 NCAA tournament and lost 83-43 at Ohio State early in the 2006-07 season, a Montana team that would go 27-4.

Prior to this season, Montana's most recent game against a Big Ten opponent was a 59-57 overtime win over Illinois in 2008-09 in Cancun in what was former coach Robin Selvig's 700th win on his way to 865 victories at Montana.

At a glance (Montana): After picking up a signature win on Sunday, 82-68 at home over Washington, the Lady Griz kept it rolling on the road on Thursday, winning 71-59 at North Dakota, a game Montana led 46-28 at the half.

After getting outscored by Gonzaga and Cal Poly by 33 points in the first half in their first two Division I games of the season, the Lady Griz built 42-33 and 46-28 halftime leads on Washington and North Dakota.

Montana, which finished second nationally last season in 3-point field goals made (10.8/g), went 8 for 16 from the arc in the first half at North Dakota, shooting 48.6 percent overall through the first 20 minutes with five turnovers.

The Lady Griz went just 7 for 24 (.292) in the second half but held a lead of at least nine points through the finish.

Dani Bartsch went 5 for 9 from the 3-point line in the first half alone and finished the game with those same 15 points, her 23rd career double-figure scoring game. She also led the team with eight rebounds.

Tyler McCliment-Call, who totaled 17 points on 6-of-23 (.261) shooting through the season's first four games, scored 13 off the bench on 5-of-7 shooting. Mack Konig added 12 points and five assists. Her season assist average of 6.2 is tied for 18th in the nation.

Montana had 10 players score on Thursday night, just as the Lady Griz had 10 get in the scoring column in Sunday's win over Washington.

Montana's bigs continue to be super-efficient. Alex Pirog, who was limited to eight minutes on Thursday because of foul trouble, has gone 17 for 22 (.773) this season. Izabella Zingaro, in her first season with the Lady Griz after transferring from Iowa State, is 13 for 17 (.765).

Thursday's win was Montana's first on the road this season and sixth straight over North Dakota.

After turning the ball over 18 times in each of its previous three games, Montana matched a season low with 14 turnovers on Thursday. Few of them proved to be costly as North Dakota scored only five points off those turnovers.

Montana got 35 points from its bench on Thursday, the fifth time in five games that its reserves have outscored the opponent's. The Lady Griz are averaging 30.4 bench points through five games.

At a glance (Minnesota): The Gophers returned all five starters from a team that won 20 games last season and tied for 11th in the Big Ten with a 5-13 league record.

Minnesota advanced to the WNIT and made it to the championship game, falling to Saint Louis, 69-50. One of those WNIT wins was a 69-65 home-court victory over North Dakota State in the round of 16, a game after the Bison knocked the Lady Griz out of the WNIT.

Leading the team in scoring last season was guard Mara Braun (17.0/g), who missed the final third of the season with a foot injury. Braun leads the team this season as well (13.6/g) but will miss upcoming games after reinjuring the same foot.

Despite missing a chunk of games last season, Braun was voted honorable mention All-Big Ten.

Annika Stewart, a 6-foot-3 transfer from Nebraska, is averaging 13.3 points on 60.4 percent shooting off the bench. She leads the team in 3-point shooting, going 11 for 21 (.524).

Taylor Woodson, in her first year after transferring from Michigan, also is averaging in double figures (10.3/g) off the bench.

Minnesota has held its first six opponents to 35.5 percent shooting and an average of 47.2 points while forcing nearly 19 turnovers. Those six opponents have gone 27 for 112 (.241) from the 3-point line.

The Gophers are averaging 77.3 points on 42.9 percent shooting. They are out-rebounding their opponents by more than seven per game and turning the ball over fewer than nine times per game.

Minnesota opened its season with one-sided home wins over Central Connecticut State, Vermont and UMass-Lowell, then traveled to Tempe, Ariz., last weekend and beat both Oregon State, 73-38, and SMU, 65-56. The latter was as close a game as the Gophers have played this season.

Minnesota, playing without Braun, won 81-52 at home over winless Eastern Illinois on Wednesday. Down one after the first quarter, the Gophers outscored the Panthers 29-6 in the second quarter to take charge. They went 12 for 22 from the 3-point line.

Minnesota has made 10 NCAA tournament appearances, the last in 2018. The program's best run of success was seven NCAA tournaments in eight years between 2002 and '09, with the 2004 team, behind the play of the incomparable Lindsay Whalen, going to the Final Four, where it lost to Connecticut.

Whalen, who went on to have a hugely successful WNBA career, was hired as Minnesota's coach in 2018. She went 71-76 over five seasons before stepping down and being replaced by Plitzuweit.

Series history: Montana and Minnesota have met just one time previously, the Lady Griz defeating the Gophers 83-71 in the championship game of the Lady Griz Classic in Missoula in mid-December 1984.

Laura Coenen had 30 points and 15 rebounds for Minnesota, which out-rebounded Montana 46-30, but 23 turnovers and a big advantage for the Lady Griz at the free throw line and a 20-point, 10-rebound double-double for Anita Novak were the difference.

Upcoming: Montana will host Evergreen State, an NAIA school in Olympia, Wash., on Tuesday at 7 p.m. The Geoducks, who will be playing the game as an exhibition, are 0-2.

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Players Mentioned

Dani Bartsch

Macy Donarski

Mack Konig

Tyler McCliment-Call

Alex Pirog

Aby Shubert

Izabella Zingaro

University of Montana Athletics