MISSOULA, Montana – Brian Holsinger came to the post-game press conference a bit late and a bit damp, but who could blame him.
Montana’s third-year head women’s basketball coach had to ditch his black sport coat and his maroon button down because each was soaking wet. He was delayed a bit because he had to soak in the celebration not only with his team but also a group of “about 15 or 20” former Lady Griz players who descended upon the Montana locker room after a rivalry win that’s one of the biggest of Holsinger’s short yet conversation-sparking tenure as UM’s head coach.
Sometimes, you get to take a bath when you thoroughly dominate your rival for one of the signature wins leading a prestigious program like the Lady Griz.
“Apologies for being late, but we had a bunch of Lady Griz alumni and they are more important than every body else,” Holsinger said with a smile while addressing the media in the Western Auxilary Gym at the Adams Center with his wife and children looking on. “One of the reasons I took this job was because of them.
“We had a good number of them, 15 or 20 alums, in the locker room so I apologize for being late. We wanted to make them proud and today we made them proud, so that’s the best part of this.”
Holsinger has assembled a beautifully talented roster. This year’s group plays an entertaining brand of basketball, spreading the floor with more shooters than any team in the Big Sky Conference and showing the deft ability to share. And the Lady Griz have feasted on the bottom of the Big Sky, scoring more than 79 points on seven different occasions, including six times against the teams in 5th through 10th place in the Big Sky standings.
But against the best teams in the league, the uber-talented Lady Griz have come up short, save for an 89-84 win at Northern Arizona January 13. In the first matchups this year against the ‘Cats in Bozeman, Eastern Washington in Cheney and a home loss to NAU on February 8, Montana’s scoring droughts looked as much like mental meltdowns than poor offensive execution.
Simply put, could the Lady Griz figure out a way to out-tough their opponents? Or would the wins come only when the shots fell?
Perhaps the best example of Montana’s emotional roller coaster came in Bozeman last month. The Lady Griz stormed to a 21-6 lead only to lose 64-55 as the Bobcats turned the game into an old-fashioned street fight.
This time around against the rival, Montana never faltered, instead showing a consistency that, if sustained, makes the Lady Griz a true contender to win the Big Sky Tournament in Boise next month.
“I told the pep rally last night, these guys are fun to watch,” Holsinger said. “This is women’s basketball at its finest, to be honest. We are one of the best 3-point shooting teams in the country. Who doesn’t like a 3-pointer? Everyone gets excited.
It’s a matter of opinion to say Saturday was Montana’s most complete effort as a team. But it’s hard to argue it was as sustained an effort as the team has had the last few months. The win included one of the best closing periods of the conference slate.
Montana State entered the game tied with UM for third in the Big Sky standings at 8-4 and owned the head to head. The Bobcats had won 11 of 13 in the rivalry and last year’s MSU win in Missoula almost certainly lingered in the back of Montana’s collective minds.
In Bozeman earlier this season, Montana raced to a 21-6 lead by shooting the lights out of Brick Breedin Fieldhouse in the first quarter. Then Montana State locked in and locked down, dominating the game physically and on the glass.
“This is what I mean with a team maturing,” Holsinger said. “You learn from moments like that on the road.
“We’ve learned. I think that’s the key to this whole thing. You get as much talent as you can and you keep learning and learning and learning. We’ve developed a better identity offensively and we don’t let those ebbs and flows affect us like we did earlier in the season.”
On Saturday, Dani Bartsch dished out of the high post to Gina Marxen for a pair of corner 3-pointers to close the first quarter as UM hit four triples in the first quarter.
Unlike in Bozeman, UM had no sort of meltdown. Instead, Montana looked like the veteran, deep team flushed wit home-grown products like super senior Carmen Gfeller, standout Holsinger recruits like sophomore point guard Mack Konig and freshman wing Haley Huard plus stud transfers like Marxen (formerly All-Big Sky at Idaho) and Maggie Espenmiller-McGraw, a starters as a freshman at Iowa State before injuries derailed her career.
Plus, the Lady Griz have Bartsch, a former Montana Gatorade Player of the Year from Helena and one of the most versatile, uniquely gifted athletes in the conference.
Montana shot 48 percent from the floor, including hitting 14 of its 27 3-point attempts. Bartsch, Marxen and Konig all scored 14 points while Espenmiller-McGraw scored 12. Gfeller didn’t take a shot in the first half but finished with nine points plus two crucial offensive rebounds that ignited a run to end the third quarter that proved to be decisive.
“There’s always going to be cold stretches but when your defense is off like ours was today and you make the 3-ball a rhythm look like it was today, they will knock it down,” Binford said. “Now, credit them. They moved the ball efficiently (18 assists). They knew where we were going to be attacking from to get us in those positions.”
Montana State won the Big Sky regular-season crown in 2019-2020 and last season. The Bobcats advanced to the NCAA Tournament in 2022. They did it with a consistent, temperate style reflective of their head coach.
MSU remains a model program in the Big Sky. Binford has proven she can recruit, develop, employ and graduate great groups and then find ways to replace them. She did it when Jasmine Hommes, Peyton Ferris and Lindsay Stockton helped the ‘Cats advance to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1992 in 2017.
Binford and a group led by Fallyn Freije went 19-1 in league play three years later only to have the Big Dance called off due to Covid. Three years after that, Darian White and Kola Bad Bear led Montana State back to March Madness.
MSU is in the mix yet again even though White is playing her fifth year at Nebraska, Bad Bear is a super senior at Montana State-Billings and senior post Lexi Deden is riding the bench because of a blown knee. MSU’s a core of freshmen and sophomores have bought into Binford’s aggressive defensive philosophies and the youth combined with the defensive fortitude will make the Bobcats a headache in Boise.
“It’s going to be really hard to beat us if we play our game for 40 minutes but I don’t think we did that tonight,” MSU sophomore Marah Dykstra
The Lady Griz certainly did play their games. On Saturday, there was no question who was the more complete, talented, deep team on the court. And for the first time in quite some time, that team was not Montana State.
That is worth an ice bath and an outfit change, if you ask Holsinger.
“It was the whole staff (that got doused in water),” Holsinger said while wearing a hooded Lady Griz sweatshirt in place of his soaked work clothes.
“I expect to win. Sometimes, I think, ‘I don’t need a bath, we were supposed to win.’ Right? But at the same time, you want to celebrate. These guys have worked their butts off. They grind away. So to have some fun, let’s have some fun. They had lots of fun.”
