Lady Griz with a big week at home

The Montana women's basketball team, tied for third in the Big Sky Conference, will have a chance to tighten up the league standings this week with home games against Northern Arizona and Northern Colorado.

The Lady Griz (15-6, 7-3 BSC) will face the first-place Lumberjacks (16-6, 8-1 BSC) on Thursday at 7 p.m. at Dahlberg Arena, then host the Bears (10-10, 5-4 BSC) at 2 p.m. on Saturday. UNC opens its road trip with a game at Montana State on Thursday night.

Montana plays five of its next seven games at home, where the Lady Griz have won five straight and are 7-3 this season.

Montana will host Montana State next week, play at Sacramento State and Portland State, then return home for games against Eastern Washington and Idaho before closing out the regular season with a road game at Idaho State.

The Lady Griz still have home games against the three Big Sky opponents who have defeated Montana: Northern Colorado, Montana State and Eastern Washington.

The Big Sky Conference tournament will open in Boise on Saturday, March 9, with the championship game to be played on Wednesday, March 13.

At a glance (Montana): The Lady Griz ran their winning streak to four games on Thursday with a 79-68 road win at Idaho. Montana raced out to a 45-21 halftime lead, then held on as the Vandals put up 47 second-half points and twice in the fourth quarter made it a six-point game.

Montana shot a season-best 53.1 percent and went 14 for 22 (.636) from the 3-point line. Carmen Gfeller scored 24 points to move from fifth to fourth on the Lady Griz career scoring list, passing Lisa McLeod. Gfeller now has 1,488 points.

Mack Konig added 18 points, hitting a career-best five 3-pointers on six tries.

During that four-game winning streak, Montana averaged 84.3 points on 48.8 percent shooting. The Lady Griz were deadly from the 3-point line, going 63 for 127 (.496).

That same team trailed 32-22 at the half on Saturday at Eastern Washington, shooting 30 percent and going 4 for 18 (.222) from the 3-point line.

The Eagles lead the Big Sky in both scoring defense and field goal percentage defense. In league games, EWU is allowing 52.7 points on 34.0 percent shooting.

Montana would rally in the second half, pulling within one with 4:47 left, but missed six straight shots with a chance to pull out a key road win.

The Lady Griz shot a season-low 33.3 percent and went 9 for 34 (.265) from the 3-point line.

In Montana's seven Big Sky wins, the Lady Griz are averaging 82.7 points on 47.8 percent shooting and have averaged more than 14 made 3-pointers on 45.9 percent shooting from the arc.

In Montana's three Big Sky losses, the Lady Griz have averaged 56.0 points on 35.6 percent shooting. Montana has gone 22 for 76 (.289) from the 3-point line in those losses.

Montana ranks second in the nation in made 3-pointers (10.9/g), seventh in 3-point percentage (.387) and eighth in 3-point attempts (28.1/g).

At a glance (Northern Arizona): The Lumberjacks will enter Thursday's game riding a six-game winning streak, victorious in every outing since Montana knocked off NAU in Flagstaff 89-84 last month, still Northern Arizona's only Big Sky loss.

Most of those six wins have come against teams in the bottom half of the league standings, though there was an 89-81 overtime home win over Eastern Washington that handed the Eagles their first Big Sky loss.

Last week, the Lumberjacks went on the road and won easily at Weber State, 85-65, then had to rally from a 30-25 halftime deficit at Idaho State to win 73-59, putting up 48 second-half points.

Thursday's game will match the Big Sky's two highest-scoring teams, with Northern Arizona averaging 78.5 points, Montana 74.4 points.

In the teams' first meeting in Flagstaff, a game that had 11 ties and 15 lead changes, Montana pulled away from a late 73-73 deadlock with two Dani Bartsch 3-pointers that put the Lady Griz up six, 79-73.

A 3-pointer by MJ Bruno with 1:10 to go and 7-of-8 shooting from the free throw line in the final minute allowed Montana to hang on.

Mack Konig had a career-high 24 points and added seven assists, and Montana went 14 for 34 (.412) from the 3-point line. That was enough to overcome 84 points from the Lumberjacks, who shot 21 for 21 from the free throw line. Leia Beattie led NAU with 22 points.

Sophie Glancey, a two-time Big Sky Player of the Week this season, averages 14.1 points and 7.0 rebounds on 52.2 percent shooting. Montana limited her to 12 points and three rebounds in the game in Flagstaff.

The balanced Lumberjacks have six other players who average between 7.2 and 12.0 points. Grace Beasley and Taylor Feldman also have earned Big Sky Player of the Week honors this season.

Northern Arizona is an excellent 10-3 in games away from home this season, with losses at Oregon and Arizona to open the season and a loss at North Dakota State in the Big Sky-Summit Challenge.

Series history: Montana leads the all-time series 63-17 and has gone 34-4 against Northern Arizona in Missoula.

One of those wins in Missoula came last year, 76-74, the Lumberjacks' first win over the Lady Griz in Missoula since 2007, snapping a 13-game losing streak.

The teams have split their last 10 meetings, each team winning five times.

At a glance (Northern Colorado): The Bears enter the week in sixth place in the Big Sky at 5-4 in league. UNC snapped a three-game losing streak with a 73-63 road win at Weber State on Saturday.

After winning five straight games in January, including a home sweep of Montana and Montana State, Northern Colorado lost consecutive games to Eastern Washington and Idaho at home, and on the road at Idaho State, averaging 58 points in the three losses.

At Weber State on Saturday, the Bears scored the game's first six points and never trailed on their way to a 10-point road win.

Northern Colorado has two of the Big Sky's top seven scorers in Delaynie Byrne (15.2/g) and Hannah Simental (13.4/g) and is the Big Sky's second-best shooting team (.439) behind Montana (.444).

The Lady Griz (.387) and the Bears (.384) both rank in the top 11 nationally in 3-point percentage, though Montana uses it much more frequently, taking 211 more attempts from the arc this season than Northern Colorado.

In last month's game in Greeley, it was UNC that took on the look of Montana, going 11 for 21 (.524) from the arc while the Bears held the Lady Griz to 3-of-16 (.188) shooting, still the fewest 3-point makes for Montana this season.

Montana led 36-24 at the half before Northern Colorado got hot, hitting 15 of 24 in the second half (.625), 7 of 9 from the arc, with Simental and Seneca Hackley combining to go 9 for 11 from the arc for the game, with Byrne adding 14 points, six rebounds, five assists and four steals.

Carmen Gfeller was the only Montana player in double figures with 19 points.

Series history: Montana leads the all-time series 22-16 and has gone 11-6 against the Bears in Missoula.

The Lady Griz swept the series last year, a first for Montana since the 2015-16 season.

Montana notes:

* The Lady Griz have four players averaging in double figures in league: Gfeller (15.9/), Espenmiller-McGraw (11.2/g), Konig (11.6/g) and Marxen (10.1/g).

* Dani Bartsch is averaging 10.8 rebounds in league, 9.6 overall. She leads the Big Sky and ranks 39th nationally.

* Montana has been outrebounded just three times this season, by Gonzaga, UC San Diego and South Dakota. The Lady Griz are +9.3 in league, +7.0 overall to rank first in the Big Sky, 31st in the nation.

* Gina Marxen has 31 assists and five turnovers the last six games. Her season assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.90 ranks 10th nationally.

* Maggie Espenmiller-McGraw ranks 15th nationally in 3-point percentage (.441).

* Montana has made 229 3-pointers this season. The program record is 239, set by the 2013-14 team. This is only the fourth season in program history the Lady Griz have made 200 or more.

* Carmen Gfeller will be playing in her 127th and 128th career games this week. The program record for games played is 129, held by Kellie Cole and Jordan Sullivan.

* Gfeller ranks fourth in program history with 1,488 points, behind Shannon Cate (2,172), Mandy Morales (1,959) and Hollie Tyler (1,698).

* Gfeller ranks fourth in the Big Sky in scoring (14.7/g). She ranks third in league games (15.9/g). She and NAU's Sophie Glancey lead the Big Sky in shooting (.522).

* Montana is shooting 44.4 percent this season. If that remains, it would be the best shooting season since 1997-98 (.452). The team's scoring average of 74.4 would be the best since the 2007-08 team averaged 74.8.

* Mack Konig has 482 points in 51 career games. If she were to score 18 or more points on Thursday, she would be the seventh-fastest player to 500 in program history behind Mandy Morales (31), Hollie Tyler (37), Shannon Cate (41), Katie Baker (43), Doris Deden (45) and Skyla Sisco (47).

* Despite coming off the bench in all 21 games, Gina Marxen ranks third in the Big Sky in assists (4.0/g). … Carmen Gfeller (24) and Dani Bartsch (22) rank among the top four in the Big Sky in blocked shots.

* Montana is 15-1 this season when the Lady Griz shoot 38 percent or better, 0-5 when they don't. … Montana is 15-2 when this season when scoring 60 or more points, 0-4 when it doesn't.

* Carmen Gfeller has scored 10 or more points in 20 consecutive games. … Gfeller's 14-point, 12-rebound double-double at Eastern Washington was her second of the season, the 10th of her career.

* MJ Bruno's nine rebounds at Eastern Washington were a collegiate high. … Mack Konig averaged 17 points on last week's road trip, going 8 for 14 from the 3-point line. … Montana went 20 for 22 from the line on the Idaho-Eastern Washington road trip.

Around the Big Sky Conference:

* Eastern Washington won at home over Portland State on Monday night to match Northern Arizona with eight league victories.

* NAU (8-1) is one better than EWU (8-2) in the loss column. Montana and Montana State are tied for third at 7-3, with Idaho State (6-4) rounding out the top half of the Big Sky standings.

* Montana still gets one more game with each of those teams, plus a road trip to Sacramento State (1-9 BSC) and Portland State (0-10 BSC).

* Thursday's schedule: NAU at UM, UNC at MSU, WSU at PSU, ISU at SAC

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

Upcoming: Montana will host Montana State on Saturday, Feb. 17, at 2 p.m.

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Players Mentioned

Dani Bartsch

MJ Bruno

Maggie Espenmiller-McGraw

Carmen Gfeller

Mack Konig

Gina Marxen

University of Montana Athletics