Lady Griz renew series against BYU

The Montana women's basketball team, after three straight games away from home, will return to Dahlberg Arena this week, hosting BYU on Wednesday night on Robin Selvig Court.

The Lady Griz (1-3) and Cougars (4-0) will tip off at 7 p.m., meeting for the first time since 2000, for the 12th time overall.

After opening the season with a non-Division I victory over Seattle Pacific, Montana dropped road games at Oregon and Washington, and on Saturday fell in a neutral-site match-up against South Dakota State in Rapid City, S.D.

Those three teams are now a combined 11-0.

BYU enters Wednesday's game with a 4-0 record and an average margin of victory of 32.5 points under first-year coach Lee Cummard. Wednesday's game will be BYU's first away from Provo this season.

The Lady Griz will have a 10-day window between games after Wednesday, not playing again until hosting Utah (3-1) on Saturday afternoon, Nov. 29.

Coverage: Wednesday's game will be streamed on ESPN+ and be available locally on KGRZ (1450 AM/92.7 FM), with Ace Sauerwein on the call. The game also can be heard on the Varsity Network.

At a glance (Montana): The Lady Griz came out of a trio of difficult match-ups with three losses, to Oregon, Washington and South Dakota State.

Washington is ranked No. 25 in this week's AP top 25 poll, while South Dakota State is behind Duke, Minnesota, Ohio State and Stanford among those teams outside the top 25 receiving votes.

Montana's most recent game was a 95-71 setback against the Jackrabbits at The Monument in Rapid City.

The Lady Griz had their best offensive showing against a Division I opponent this season but were not able to slow down South Dakota State, the nation's top-ranked mid-major team.

SDSU shot 56.1 percent and put up scoring quarters of 25, 21, 21 and 28 points to lead from start to finish.

Against its three Division I opponents this season, Montana is allowing 90.7 points per game on 51.0 percent shooting. The Lady Griz averaged 58.0 points on 35.2 percent shooting in those three games.

Montana was nearly doubled up on the boards against Oregon, Washington and South Dakota State, those teams grabbing 146 rebounds to Montana's 74, a rebounding margin of -24.0.

The Lady Griz collected just 18 offensive rebounds in those three games while allowing 46. The Ducks, Huskies and Jackrabbits combined to score 150 points in the paint.

Offensively, Montana has steadily improved, going from 47 points against Oregon to 56 against Washington to 71 on Saturday against South Dakota State.

Part of that has been the emerging scoring of Butler transfer Jocelyn Land, who scored four points against the Ducks, 10 against the Huskies, then exploded for 24 on Saturday in Rapid City.

Land went 8 for 16 from the 3-point line, accounting for all her shots taken in the game.

Her eight threes were the second-most made in a game in program history, trailing only the nine made by Katie Edwards in a road win at Sacramento State in January 2005.

Her 16 attempts were the most threes ever taken by a Lady Griz. (Edwards went 9 for 12 against the Hornets when she set the makes record.)

Land helped Montana go 16 for 39 (.410) from the arc, with six other players also making at least one 3-pointer.

The 16 makes matched the second-highest total in program history, three off the record. The team's 39 attempts were the third-most ever taken by a Lady Griz team.

As expected, Montana's two selections on the Preseason All-Big Sky team, Mack Konig and Avery Waddington, have been the team's steadiest offensive producers.

Konig has opened her senior season with four straight games of 11 or more points, her season average at 15.8. Dating back to the close of last season, she has scored 10 or more points in 10 straight games.

She is shooting 50 percent from the field, 50 percent from the 3-point line and leads the team with 15 assists. She is up to 31st in program history with 1,070 career points.

Waddington is averaging 14.3 points on high-percentage shooting as well. She has gone 10 for 18 (.556) from the 3-point line, has been perfect at the free throw line (5 for 5) and is shooting 47.7 percent overall.

Outside of Konig, Waddington and Land, the rest of the team has shot 14 for 68 (.206) from the 3-point line. No one outside of Konig, Waddington and Land is averaging more than 5.0 points per game.

The team had just 31 bench points against Oregon, Washington and South Dakota State.

Montana has started the season 0-3 against Division I opponents for the first time since 2017-18, when the Lady Griz lost to Wyoming, Kentucky and Gonzaga.

At a glance (BYU): The Cougars are making a return to normal under first-year coach Lee Cummard.

In 21 seasons under Jeff Judkins, who led BYU to 20 or more wins 13 times while leading the program from 2001-02 to 2021-22, the Cougars were annual contenders in the Mountain West and West Coast conferences.

Judkins led the program to 11 NCAA Tournaments, five times took his team to the WNIT before he retired in April 2022.

After three seasons with sub-.500 records under Amber Whiting, the coach and school agreed to part ways in March, opening the big chair for Cummard.

Cummard was an assistant under Judkins in his final three seasons, Whiting's associate head coach the last three years.

Cummard, the Mountain West Player of the Year as a junior and first-team all-league as a junior and senior, played for BYU before playing overseas from 2009-16, in France, Japan and Belgium.

He was an assistant for the BYU men's team in 2018-19 before moving to Judkins' women's program.

BYU went 13-17 last season and tied for a distant 12th in the 16-team Big 12 with a 4-14 league record. The Cougars missed a national postseason tournament for the first time since 2018 and for only the second time since the 2008-09 season.

BYU, picked 10th in this year's Big 12 preseason media poll, is 4-0 after posting easy home wins over Coastal Carolina, San Jose State, Omaha and Fresno State, the team's closest margin of victory to date 19 points.

The Cougars have been a menace defensively, holding its first four opponents to 49.5 points on 28.6 percent shooting while forcing more than 24 turnovers per game.

Those teams, which is important to note prior to Wednesday's opponent, which is taking nearly 54 percent of its shots from the arc, were held to 21.1 percent shooting from the 3-point line.

Helped by 91-57 and 104-47 wins over Coastal Carolina and Omaha, respectively, BYU is averaging 82.0 points on 43.8 percent shooting.

The Cougars have taken exactly half their shots this season from the 3-point line and have not done it well yet, shooting 27.7 percent from the arc through four games.

But they are shooting nearly 60 percent inside the arc and have gotten to the free throw line 32 more times than Montana through four games.

Leading BYU is sophomore guard Delaney Gibb, last year's Big 12 Freshman of the Year after averaging 17.4 points. Voted to this season's Preseason All-Big 12 team, Gibb is averaging 16.3 through four games.

Freshman guard Olivia Hamlin, who opened her collegiate career with scoring games of 13, 18 and 16 points, is averaging 15.3 points. Sophomore guard Brinley Cannon is averaging 10.5 points.

The team's most impactful transfer has been 6-foot-3 forward Lara Rohkohl, who is averaging 9.8 points and 9.8 rebounds. She has taken 26 shots, has made 19 (.731). She previously played at Charleston.

Freshman Braeden Gunlock, of Bigfork, Mont., has appeared in all four games this season. She has totaled 10 points and seven rebounds.

Series history: Montana and BYU played 11 times between 1981 and 2000 but have not matched up since Montana's 70-67 win in Provo in December 2000.

Montana is 8-3 all-time against BYU, 4-1 in Missoula.

Around the Big Sky Conference:

* Preseason favorite Montana State is off to a 3-0 start, with two non-Division I home wins and an 86-72 road victory at Portland. The Bobcats get their first big test of the season on Tuesday, hosting Mountain West favorite UNLV.

* Sacramento State is off to a feisty 4-1 start, Idaho, Idaho State and Northern Colorado are 3-1 while facing varying levels of strength of schedules.

* Idaho State might have the best body of work to date, winning 67-55 at Grand Canyon, a team under a new coach but still coming off a 32-3 season, and 61-49 at home over UC Irvine, a 21-win team a season ago.

* The Bengals lost 64-63 at home on Sunday to now 5-0 South Dakota on a 3-pointer at the buzzer. Idaho State led by six with five minutes to go, by four with two minutes to go and took a 63-61 lead on a basket with 2.8 seconds left before the Coyotes broke hearts in Reed Gym.

* Portland State (1-2), Montana (1-3) and Northern Arizona (1-3), all under first-year coaches, are seeking their first Division I wins of the season.

Upcoming: Montana will host Utah on Saturday afternoon, Nov. 29.

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Players Mentioned

Mack Konig

Jocelyn Land

Avery Waddington

University of Montana Athletics