MISSOULA, Montana — The evolution of Brian Holsinger’s version of the Lady Griz continued Monday night at Dahlberg Arena. Just what this Montana team might evolve into is anybody’s guess.
The influx of talent into the UM women’s basketball program as Holsinger begins his third season at the helm is apparent. Heck, in Monday night’s opener against Gonzaga, Holsinger brought Gina Marxen off the bench. After all, Marxen was a two-time first-team All-Big Sky Conference at Idaho and a 29-game starter during her first year at Montana last season.
Holsinger has preached a desired defensive identity since he first came to guide the storied program after 15 years coaching as an assistant in the Pac 12.
And while the Lady Griz have played defense at times during Holsinger’s 61 games at the helm, most of Montana’s talented roster has offensive tendencies that out-weight defensive prowess.
Monday against Gonzaga, the Lady Griz gave up four 3-pointers in the first five minutes of the game and played chase for the rest of the contest. Despite Dani Bartsch’s best efforts to spark the home team and the home crowd time and again, the visiting Bulldogs of the West Coast Conference would always answer.
Montana cut the lead to 55-54 with 8:35 left thanks to a Bartsch jumper on a night the Helena Capital product finished with 18 points and 11 rebounds. But Gonzaga answered with a 12-2 run and cruised to an 83-70 win as the Lady Griz failed to come up with the necessary stops to secure what would’ve been a signature win to start Holsinger’s third season.
“Communication is hard, really hard,” Holsinger said when asked about trying to get on the same page defensively with a roster full of new faces. “That’s one thing we emphasized in the locker room is when (associate head coach) Nate (Harris) or I relay something from the bench down here and we are on the other end, we have to all communicate it well. There was miscommunications all over the floor, where people didn’t know what we were doing on on-ball screens. Those are the mistakes that good teams like Gonzaga take advantage of.
“You can’t make mistakes like that against a really good team and we made too many.”
Much of what the 2,603 fans in attendance saw was the first look at a revamped Montana roster. Marxen returns and scored 13 points in 16 minutes off the bench. Super senior Carmen Gfeller is already a 1,000-point scorer in her career and was a preseason all-league selection; she battled foul trouble all evening Monday night. She finished without a made field goal and just four points to equal her foul total in 20 minutes of action.
Libby Stump, one of the top scoring freshmen in the league last season and one of the most prolific scoring rookies in Lady Griz history, also made up one of the most recognizable bench trios in recent Big Sky memory. She finished 2-of-7 from the floor and scored four points in 21 minutes of action.
Mack Konig, the Big Sky Freshman of the year last season, did find herself in the starting lineup. She played well on the way to nine points and four assists, but certainly experienced her latest battle of being at the top of the opponent’s scouring report.
Part of the reason some of the most familiar faces weren’t on the court to start the game is because of the pedigree of the transfers Holsinger’s staff brought in this last off-season.
Maggie Espendmiller-McGraw, a former 4-star recruit who started her career at Iowa State, scored Montana’s first bucket of the season, but Gonzaga answered with eight straight. Espenmiller-McGraw finished with eight points and two assists in 21 minutes.
MJ Bruno, a transfer from Portland, is perhaps the surprise of the opener. She not only started, but knocked down a pair of 3-pointers and scored 12 points overall, one of three Lady Griz in double figures. That was all secondary to the tenacious, aggressive defense she played during her 19 minutes on the floor.
“This so, so early,” Holsinger said. “To ask them to execute well is not fair at this point, the first game of the season against this type of competition. They were going to make some mistakes. We needed to hit some more shots tonight to overcome the mistakes defensively.
“We are going to be hard to beat come January,” Holsinger continued. “We have a lot of pieces. We have to figure out where those pieces fit. We have to get more solid on defense all the way around, fundamentally.”
Despite all the changes in rotations, one of Dahlberg Arena’s current favorites led the way for the Lady Griz. Bartsch, who’s a 6-foot-2, jumping jack, played 37 minutes on the way to her latest double-double. She showed just how many ways she can impact a game, hitting a pair of 3-pointers during her 6-of-7 shooting performance while also snaring two of UM’s seven steals and dominating the glass on both ends. At times, she served as Montana’s best perimeter defender and at others, its best rim protector.
“The Bartschs, are you kidding? Between her and her sister (Boise State standout volleyball player Paige), she really hasn’t even shot it that well in practice and she comes out here and looks like our best shooter,” Holsinger said with a smile. “Looks like we are going to have to start running things for her more.”
Dani Bartsch, who had a shoulder operation in the off-season, looks no worse for wear and in fact looks like an improved version of the spark plug player that averaged 8.1 points, 11.2 rebounds over season’s final 11 games as a starter while also earning Montana’s Julie Deming Oustanding Defensive Player honor as a sophomore last season.
“We just had some miscommunications that killed us,” Bartsch said. “We had a few possessions where we came down and half of us were in zone, half of us were in man and that’s not going to win too many games.
“But that’s the great part. The sky is the limit for this team and there’s so much we can learn from this game. We were toe to toe with Gonzaga and that’s a great team to battle with.”
Montana gets eight days before hosting another powerful opponent. Washington State, the team that won the Pac 12 Tournament last season, comes to Missoula on Tuesday November 14.
“This game will move us forward,” Holsinger said. “Honestly, I hate it because it’s a loss and I’m tired of losing to them to be honest. I’m really tired of it. I want to beat them. Gonzaga has been the standard for a while in this area. But you are going to learn a lot more from that game than a 30-point win. It’s going to move us forward.”
