Lady Griz open Texas trip with game at Houston

The Montana women's basketball team will wrap up its pre-Christmas schedule with a three-game trip to Texas next week, with three games over five days against Houston, Abilene Christian and Tarleton State.

The Lady Griz will open the road trip with a morning game on Tuesday against the Cougars (5-4) as part of Houston's Education Day. The game will tip off at 10 a.m. (MT) at the Fertitta Center. The Cougars first play at New Mexico on Saturday night.

Montana will then head to central Texas for the Abilene Christian Christmas Classic at ACU's Moody Coliseum. The Lady Griz will face the host Wildcats (6-3) on Friday at 4:30 p.m. (MT), the Texans (5-4) at noon (MT) on Saturday.

Abilene Christian faces Texas Tech on the road on Sunday. Tarleton State opens the Christmas Classic with a game against Buffalo on Friday before playing Montana on Saturday.

The games will wrap up Montana's non-conference schedule. The Lady Griz will open Big Sky Conference play with a road trip to Northern Arizona and Northern Colorado, with games on Jan. 1 and 3.

Coverage: Next week's games against Houston and Abilene Christian will stream on ESPN+. The neutral-site game against Tarleton State will be stream on WAC TV. All three games will have local coverage on KGRZ (1450 AM/92.7 FM) and the Varsity Network, with Ace Sauerwein on the call.

Storylines:

* Montana is making its first trip to the state of Texas since the 2001-02 season, when the Lady Griz faced Southeast Missouri State and Arkansas-Little Rock at what is now Texas-Rio Grande Valley.

Montana has six times traveled to Texas for games, the first three as part of postseason national tournaments, at the then NWIT in Amarillo in 1984-85 and 1986-87, and at Texas for an NCAA tournament game in 1988-89.

The Lady Griz played in tournaments at Texas State in 1994-95 and at Rice in 1996-97.

Overall, Montana is 7-6 in games played in the state of Texas.

* Montana has played only one previous game against next week's three opponents. The Lady Griz defeated Houston 93-72 at Mississippi State's tournament in 2001-02. Montana has never played Abilene Christian or Tarleton State.

* Montana will go more than a month between home games after falling to St. Thomas in Missoula on Saturday, Dec. 6. The Lady Griz won't play at home again until hosting Idaho on Thursday, Jan. 8.

It's the first time since the 1997-98 season that Montana will go more than a month between home games.

* Tuesday will be Montana's third game of the season against a team from the Big 12. The Lady Griz lost last month at home to BYU, 70-69, and to Utah, 78-38.

Montana also faced Oregon and Washington of the Big Ten last month, plus South Dakota State, the nation's second-ranked mid-major team behind Princeton.

Those five opponents are a combined 44-8 and all are sitting in the top 56 in the latest NET rankings.

* Montana has a one-off connection with Houston.

First-year Cougar coach Matthew Mitchell was the head coach at Kentucky for 13 seasons, from 2007-08 to 2019-20. In the 2017-18 season, the Wildcats started a home-and-home series with a game at Washington State and were looking to pick up a second game on the road trip.

Montana said yes, which is why Kentucky played the Lady Griz in Missoula on Nov. 16, 2017. The game was tied at the half, 27-27, before the Wildcats pulled away for a 71-54 win.

* Montana went 1-1 in last week's Big Sky Conference-Summit League Challenge, winning 86-56 at North Dakota on Wednesday for its first Division I win of the season.

At home on Saturday, Montana lost 81-65 to St. Thomas. The Lady Griz led 32-28 at the half, but the Tommies shot 64.7 percent in the second half to outscore Montana 53-33 over the final 20 minutes.

* Montana went 19 for 38 from the 3-point line at North Dakota. That is tied for the second-most makes from three this season in an NCAA Division I game.

Troy made 20 against Oakwood on Dec. 10. Florida State and Fairfield also have made 19 3-pointers in a game this season.

* The Lady Griz rank third nationally in threes attempted (32.6/g), fourth in threes made per game (10.5).

Montana also ranks in the top 25 nationally in turnovers per game, ranking 24th at 12.9. The Lady Griz have had 13, 10, 10 and a season-low six turnovers in their last four games.

* Jocelyn Land ranks 37th nationally with 2.88 made threes per game. … Land's 30 points at North Dakota are the most scored by a player from the Big Sky Conference this season.

The last time out: St. Thomas 81, Montana 65 – Coming off a 30-point road win, the Lady Griz were unable to make it back-to-back victories, falling at home on Saturday to the Tommies in their second game of the Big Sky-Summit Challenge.

Montana led 32-28 at the half after holding St. Thomas to eight points in the second quarter on 3-of-14 shooting.

But the Tommies could hardly miss in the second half, going 22 for 34 (.647) overall, 6 for 11 (.545) from the 3-point line. St. Thomas, which had five starters score in double figures, took the lead for good with 6:05 to go in the third quarter and held it the rest of the way.

Avery Waddington matched her career high with 21 points, Mack Konig added 17, her seventh time in double figures in eight games this season. Aby Shubert scored 12 points, Jocelyn Land added 11.

It was Shubert's second consecutive 12-point scoring game, her first time as a Lady Griz scoring in double figures in consecutive games. She went 6 for 10 from the 3-point line against North Dakota and St. Thomas.

Three days after going 19 for 38 from the 3-point line, St. Thomas limited Montana to a season-low 18 attempts, the Lady Griz making five. In response to UST's no-help defensive game plan, Montana scored a season-high 42 points in the paint.

At a glance (Houston): The Cougars have been to five NCAA tournaments in their history and eight other times have made the WNIT, including 2018, '19, '21 and '22 under coach Ronald Hughey, but after going 5-25 last season, 1-17 in the Big 12, Hughey resigned and was replaced by Mitchell.

Mitchell made a name for himself at Kentucky, going 303-133 over 13 seasons, three times being named SEC Coach of the Year, three times leading the Wildcats to the Elite Eight. He retired from Kentucky and from coaching following the 2019-20 season.

He returned to the profession in March when he was hired by Houston.

As expected, the Cougars underwent a major offseason transition. Only three players from the 2024-25 team returned. Three freshmen joined the team plus seven transfers.

Houston will go into Saturday's game at New Mexico with a 5-4 record and a NET ranking of 168. The Cougars are 3-2 at home this season after falling 70-62 to Southern at the Fertitta Center on Sunday.

Houston has three wins over top-150 teams in the NET rankings: 76-59 over UT Arlington (149), 67-57 over High Point (104) and 66-61 over Tulsa (137).

Redshirt senior guard Kyndall Hunter, who spent two seasons at Texas, two at Texas A&M, leads Houston in scoring at 11.8 points per game. The balanced team has six players who average between 7.7 and 11.8 points per game.

Houston has made just 34 3-pointers through nine games on 23.9 percent shooting but has defended the perimeter well, opponents making only 42 from the arc on 25.6 percent shooting. The Cougars have forced 194 turnovers, more than 20 per game.

Series history: The teams have met just one time previously, at Mississippi State's tournament in Starkville in December 2001.

Montana won 93-72 to advance to face Mississippi State in the title game, which the Lady Griz would lose 78-73 in overtime.

In the Montana-Houston game, the Lady Griz, up 38-35 at the break, shot 20 for 32 (.625) in the second half to score 55 points and pull away. Cheryl Keller scored 23 points for Montana.

Upcoming: The ACU Christmas Classic, a short break for Christmas, the start of Big Sky.

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Players Mentioned

Mack Konig

Jocelyn Land

Aby Shubert

Avery Waddington

University of Montana Athletics