Lady Griz establish themselves as clear conference favorites in win on Senior Night

Posted on February 25, 2008 by Colin O'Keefe

Apologies for the poor image quality.

Saturday night, the Lady Griz blew the Bengals out by 22 at Dahlberg Arena. After the victory, it looks like the conference winner will have to win the championship on the same court. With the win over ISU, the Lady Griz's magic number is one with only three to play. A victory in any of the Lady Griz's final three games (@NoCo, @EWU, @PSU) means the conference tourney will be played in Missoula.

Here's an interesting tidbit on what Selvig & Co. used as motivation going into the game. From the Missoulian:
Doma, who entered the game needing 26 points to pass Montana assistant coach Shannon (Cate) Schweyen as the Big Sky's career scoring queen, finished with her lowest points total (12) of the season. She didn't score at all in the 10 minutes Lohman was assigned to her in the first half.[...]

“A lot of her shots weren't falling that maybe might have other nights, but it was nice to hold her to 12. Shannon (Schweyen) has the conference record right now so we were like, ‘We can't let (Doma) beat Shannon's record in our house.' We were talking about that before the game and used that as a little energy.”
Here's some audio from my post-game interview with Coach Selvig.

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Lady Griz hoping they break nationwide trend

Posted on March 7, 2007 by Colin O'Keefe
It's really hard for anyone, a UM fan especially, to imagine a scenario where the 25th ranked Lady Griz don't roll through this conference tournament. The Lady Griz are far above the rest of the conference, right?

Well, that doesn't mean they can't lose. Kellis Robinett, whose coverage of Big Sky hoops has been excellent this year, points to what other dominant teams have done in their respective conference tournaments.
Three Division I teams — Duke, Uconn, Tennessee — went into their respective conference tournaments without a conference loss, and one team (Ohio State) only had one conference loss. All of those teams, however, were upset in their tourney semifinals.
However, he does point out that "The Zoo" may be very good at aiding this Lady Griz team:
One thing that will make the task of taking out the Griz so daunting is the crowd factor. This season, Montana women's basketball nearly outdrew the men's team's crowds. The Lady Griz average just about 4,000 per game, and they are fans who know when to cheer, when not to, what to yell and how loud to yell it.
The complete article offers some good insight and opinion. One opinion LG fans may not agree with: he thinks the MVP award should've gone to Idaho State's Natalie Doma, not Mandy Morales. He also has an interesting take on Missoula.
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