Lady Griz, Broncos to renew rivalry

The Montana women's basketball team will open play in the WNIT on Wednesday night when it hosts Boise State in a first-round game in Missoula.

The Lady Griz (22-9) and Broncos (21-13), conference rivals from 1978-79 to 1995-96 -- Get Noisy for Boise, anyone? -- will tip off at 7 p.m. inside Dahlberg Arena.

The winner of Wednesday's game will advance to face North Dakota State (21-11) in the round of 32, with the location of that second-round game still to be determined.

Montana and Boise State competed as conference rivals first in the Northwest Women's Basketball League, then the Mountain West Athletic Conference, then the Big Sky Conference.

The teams have not met since playing a home-and-home series during the 2007-08 and 2008-09 seasons.

Coverage: Wednesday's game will stream on ESPN+ and have the usual local radio coverage on KGRZ (92.7 FM/1450 AM), KGRZMissoula.com and the Varsity Network, with Ace Sauerwein calling the action for every available outlet.

Lady Griz return to the national scene: Montana played in 21 NCAA tournaments between 1983 and 2015 and 27 national postseason tournaments overall during the 38-year career of former Lady Griz coach Robin Selvig, which spanned from 1978-79 to 2015-16.

This is Montana's first trip to a national tournament since the Lady Griz played in the NCAA tournament in 2015.

Montana played in the AIAW national tournament in 1982 and six times previously has played in what is currently the WNIT. The Lady Griz competed in the NWIT in 1985 and '87, the WNIT in 2003, '07 and '14.

Overall, Montana has gone 8-30 in national tournament games, 2-8 in versions of the WNIT.

Montana will be hosting its 11th national tournament game on Wednesday. The Lady Griz hosted eight NCAA tournament games between 1984 and 2004, going 4-4.

Montana, after falling to North Dakota in the 2014 Big Sky championship game in Grand Forks, was chosen to host two games in the WNIT in 2014.

The Lady Griz defeated Washington State and Cougar assistant coach Brian Holsinger 90-78 in a first-round game before falling to San Diego 60-57 in a second-round game.

At a glance (Montana): The Lady Griz are 22-9. It's the 32nd 20-win season in program history but the first for Montana since Selvig's final year, 2015-16.

The Lady Griz were picked third in the Big Sky Conference preseason polls and finished third, going 13-5 in league to come in behind Eastern Washington (16-2 BSC) and Northern Arizona (15-3 BSC).

Montana snapped a six-game Big Sky tournament losing streak last week with a 73-61 quarterfinal win over No. 6 Idaho in Boise, giving the Lady Griz their first postseason victory since 2018.

Montana lost 74-67 to No. 2 Northern Arizona in the semifinals, the third time in five years the Lumberjacks sent the Lady Griz home from Boise.

The Lumberjacks led 13-8 after the first quarter, then closed the game out in the fourth, going 8 for 13 in the final period.

Lady Griz collect Big Sky honors: Montana was well represented when the Big Sky announced its annual award winners and all-league teams two weeks ago.

Maggie Espenmiller-McGraw, a transfer from Iowa State, was voted the Newcomer of the Year, while Gina Marxen, who came off the bench the first 22 games of the season before moving into the starting lineup last month, was named Top Reserve.

Carmen Gfeller was named first-team All-Big Sky for the second time in her career, All-Big Sky for the fourth.

Espenmiller-McGraw and Dani Bartsch were named to the second team, with Bartsch being named to the six-player All-Defensive Team.

Espenmiller-McGraw became Montana's second-ever Newcomer of the Year, joining Vicki Austin, who received the award in 1988-89 after transferring from Long Beach State.

Montana won the Outstanding Sixth Player award, as it was then called before being renamed Top Reserve, four straight seasons between 1994-95 and 1997-98, and again in 1999-2000. Marxen became Montana's first winner of the award since 2000, the program's sixth winner overall.

Gfeller was voted third-team All-Big Sky in 2020-21, first-team in 2021-22 and second-team last season.

Last week, Mack Konig was voted to the Big Sky Conference All-Tournament Team, a first for Montana since 2015. Konig averaged 17 points on 50 percent shooting in two games in Boise, going 5 for 11 from the 3-point line.

Montana among national leaders: The Lady Griz enter the week ranked third nationally in 3-point field goals made (10.7/g), sixth in 3-point attempts (28.3/g) and eighth in 3-point percentage (.377).

Montana, which has 331 makes from the 3-point line, the eighth-highest total in Big Sky history, long ago surpassed the previous program record of 239. The Lady Griz had only made 200 or more 3-pointers in a season just three times prior to this year.

Maggie Espenmiller-McGraw enters Wednesday's game needing one more made 3-pointer to break the Montana single-season record. She is currently tied with McCalle Feller at 75, a total Feller had in 2015-16.

Not far behind is Gina Marxen. Her 63 makes rank eighth in program history.

Mack Konig has 52 makes, Dani Bartsch 49, leaving her one away from giving Montana four players with 50 or more makes. The Lady Griz had never had more than one player with 50 or more makes in a season prior to this year.

Espenmiller-McGraw ranks 22nd nationally in 3-point percentage (.421), Marxen ranks 52nd (.384).

Bartsch makes history: Junior Dani Bartsch grabbed her 319th rebound of the season in the second half of Tuesday's semifinal loss to Northern Arizona. That broke Jill Greenfield's single-season program record of 318, which had stood since the 1980-81 season.

Bartsch's season average of 10.4 leads the Big Sky and ranks 25th nationally. Montana hasn't had a player average 10 rebounds per game since Greta Koss (10.0/g) in 1996-97. Prior to that, only Greenfield (10.6 in 1980-81) and Linda Deden (10.2 in 1977-78) had done it.

Gina Marxen, ball security expert: Marxen, who spent three seasons at Idaho before playing her final two years at Montana, leads the Lady Griz in assists with 115, a modest total through 31 games but the first half of an impressive assist-to-turnover ratio.

Marxen has only turned the ball over 39 times in 841 minutes. Her assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.95 ranks fifth nationally.

At a glance (Boise State): The Broncos return to a postseason national tournament for the first time since playing in the 2019 NCAA tournament, though Boise State would have played in the 2020 NCAAs after winning that year's Mountain West tournament had COVID-19 never been heard from.

The Broncos have played in 10 postseason national tournaments, six of those being the NCAA, the program's best run going to the big one in 2015, '17, '18 and '19. 2020 would have made it five trips to the NCAA tournament in six years.

Boise State then went into a post-COVID funk, going 14-9 in 2020-21, 8-21 in 2021-22 and 17-16 last year. The Broncos reached the 20-win mark again this year for the 11th time in program history.

Boise State was picked fourth in the Mountain West preseason poll behind UNLV, Colorado State and Wyoming and ended up in a tie for fourth with Nevada, Colorado State and San Diego State, those teams finishing 10-8 behind UNLV (17-1), New Mexico (12-6) and Wyoming (11-7).

The Broncos played nonconference games against Weber State (W, 76-47) and Eastern Washington (L, 43-64) and joined Montana at the USD Winter Classic before Christmas.

Boise State lost to UC San Diego 62-56 before defeating San Diego 62-54. Montana defeated San Diego 72-52 and UC San Diego 68-67.

The Broncos are led in scoring by sophomore guard Natalie Pasco (13.0/g), who made the Mountain West All-Freshman Team last season and the 10-player All-Mountain West Team this year. She leads the Mountain West and ranks 24th nationally with 81 3-pointers made.

Sophomore guard Mya Hansen averages 9.9 points and is shooting 41.3 percent from the 3-point line.

Senior forward Abby Muse, voted to the five-player preseason All-Mountain West team in October, averages 7.6 points and 8.4 rebounds, and has totaled 90 blocks. She ranks 10th nationally at 2.65 blocks per game and was voted to the Mountain West All-Defensive Team.

Boise State ranks second nationally in blocks (6.2/g), 22nd in field goal percentage defense (.364) and 41st in defending the 3-point line (.282), which will be a key to watch on Wednesday night.

Another key: rebounding margin. Montana ranks 44th nationally at +5.7, Boise State ranks 51st at +5.4. The Lady Griz have been outrebounded just seven times this season in 31 games.

Series history: Montana leads the all-time series with Boise State 38-12 and has gone 21-3 against the Broncos in Missoula.

Wednesday's meeting is the first between the programs since Montana defeated Boise State 72-51 in Missoula in December 2008.

The Lady Griz defeated the Broncos 24 straight times between 1981 and 1992 before June Daugherty's program began challenging Robin Selvig's program at Montana.

Boise State ended Montana's six-year run as regular-season league champion in 1992, going 14-2 to UM's 13-3, but the Lady Griz got the last laugh, winning 82-67 on BSU's home floor in the Big Sky title game, shooting 24 for 37 (.649) to overcome 25 turnovers.

The two teams shared the Big Sky regular-season title in 1994, both going 12-2.

Both made that season's NCAA tournament, expanded for the first time that year to 64 teams, Montana as the automatic qualifier after defeating the Broncos in the tournament championship game in Missoula, 81-65, the Broncos as an at-large selection.

It's the only time in Big Sky history the league has had two teams make the NCAA tournament.

The teams finished first (Montana) and second (Boise State) in the Broncos' final two years in the Big Sky, in 1994-95 and 1995-96, before Boise State moved on to the Big West, then the WAC, then the Mountain West Conference.

The teams have played just six times since their last matchup as league rivals in February 1996.

Montana connections: Boise State assistant coach Mike Petrino was an assistant coach at Montana for four seasons, from 2016-17 to 2019-20, under former Lady Griz coach Shannon Schweyen. He served as Montana's interim head coach for the 2020-21 season.

Mya Hansen, from Billings, committed to the Lady Griz in the summer of 2019, prior to her sophomore year of high school, then decommitted in June 2021 after Montana underwent a coaching change. She committed to Butler, decommitted after that school's coaching change, before landing at Boise State.

Dani Bartsch's twin sister, Paige, plays volleyball at Boise State. She was the Mountain West Freshman of the Year in 2021, All-Mountain West as a sophomore and junior, and the co-Player of the Year as a junior in addition to being an AVCA honorable mention All-American.

Game notes:

* Montana has a NET ranking of 97. Boise State is 130. The winner of Wednesday's game will advance to face North Dakota State, which is 110.

* Boise State coach Gordy Presnell is in his 19th year leading the Broncos. His teams have gone 1-1 against Montana, winning 70-64 in Boise in November 2007 and losing 72-51 in Missoula in December 2008.

Presnell won his 750th career game at the Mountain West tournament. He coached at Seattle Pacific for 18 years, going 396-127, before being hired by Boise State prior to the 2005-06 season.

* Montana is 10-5 at home this season, with nonconference losses to Gonzaga, Washington State and Colorado State, league losses to Northern Arizona and Eastern Washington.

Boise State is 5-8 on the road this season. One of those losses was a 64-43 defeat at Big Sky champion Eastern Washington.

* Carmen Gfeller continues to add to her program record for career games played. Wednesday night will be her 137th game played in a Lady Griz uniform. Next closest on the list is 129.

* Gfeller, the No. 4-ranked scorer in program history, cracked 1,600 points in Montana's Big Sky semifinal loss to Northern Arizona. She has 1,601.

* Gfeller goes into Wednesday's game up five points on Gina Marxen for collegiate points scored. Gfeller is at 1,601, Marxen is at 1,596.

* Montana is 20-1 when it shoots 40 percent or better, 2-8 when it doesn't. Boise State is holding its opponents to 36.4 percent shooting this season.

* The Lady Griz have made an eight-win improvement over last season, when Montana finished 14-16. … Montana's 13 league wins were the most for the Lady Griz since going 14-4 in 2014-15.

* Carmen Gfeller's scoring averages over the last four seasons: 14.3 (2020-21), 13.9 (2021-22), 13.8 (2022-23) and 13.6 (2023-24), every season within a point of the high and low.

* Gfeller's 22 shot attempts against Northern Arizona last week in the Big Sky semifinals were a career high. … Her 21 points against the Lumberjacks was the 16th time in her career scoring 20 or more points, her 90th game in double figures.

* Maggie Espenmiller-McGraw has made at least one 3-pointer in 17 straight games, as has Gina Marxen.

* Espenmiller-McGraw's 15-point game against Idaho in the Big Sky quarterfinals was her 18th this season with 10 or more points. She had 17 such games in four years at Iowa State.

* Dani Bartsch has grabbed 11 or more rebounds in five straight games. … Over the last five games, she has 63 rebounds, eight points.

* Bartsch had a career-high six blocks against Idaho last week in Boise. It was the most for Montana since Abby Anderson blocked six shots at Portland State in February 2022.

* Mack Konig has averaged 16.4 points the last five games. She has gone 9 for 18 from the 3-point line the last three games.

* Gfeller has made 24 consecutive free throws dating back to January 27.

* MJ Bruno scored 10 points in Montana's Big Sky tournament win over Idaho. It was her first time in double figures since Jan. 27.

* The Big Sky Conference has four teams playing in national tournaments, Eastern Washington in the NCAA, Montana, Northern Arizona and Northern Colorado in the WNIT.

The Eagles, a No. 14 seed, play at No. 3 Oregon State on Friday.

Northern Colorado plays at Texas-San Antonio on Thursday in a first-round WNIT game. Northern Arizona received a first-round bye and plays either South Dakota or UC Riverside in the round of 32.

* The Mountain West got three teams into the postseason. League champion UNLV earned a No. 10 seed and will play No. 7 Creighton on Saturday in the NCAA tournament.

Boise State is joined by Wyoming in the WNIT. The Cowgirls received a bye and will face the Northern Colorado-Texas-San Antonio winner in the round of 32.

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Players Mentioned

Dani Bartsch

MJ Bruno

Maggie Espenmiller-McGraw

Carmen Gfeller

Mack Konig

Gina Marxen

University of Montana Athletics