BOISE, Idaho – With less than a minute left in the third quarter of Tuesday’s Montana-Northern Arizona Big Sky Conference semifinal, Montana’s Dani Bartsch drew an offensive foul on NAU’s Sophie Glancey in the low post.
As they walked back down the court, Glancey teased her post counterpart.
You lift too much to be doing that.
Bartsch jawed back, and by the time they reached Montana’s end of the court, both were laughing.
Bartsch confirmed after the game that the moment was just some friendly banter between two players who have certainly had plenty of battles over Bartsch’s four and Glancey’s three years in the league.
From the third-floor balcony at ICCU Arena, it looked like something else – the Lady Griz refusing to back down from the No. 2 seed, 26-win Lumberjacks, the program that had knocked them out of two of the last three Big Sky Tournaments.
The ensuing possession ended with Bartsch knocking down a straight-on 3-pointer, cutting Montana’s deficit to seven points going to the fourth and triggering a wild final period that saw the Lady Griz score 30 points in 10 minutes for a comeback 71-67 win.
“I’m super proud of our kids, super proud of their ability to stay the course,” Montana interim head coach Nate Harris said. “We just had to continue to get to some stuff offensively and score enough points, and try to make a really, really good offensive team just a little bit inefficient so we could steal it down the stretch.
“Obviously, we got some tremendous individual performances. And no offense to those performances, but none of that matters. What matters is the way this group stuck together, 1 through 14, and found a way to have one more point. And in this case, it was four more points than a really good team.”
The shock win, just Montana’s third since the Big Sky Tournament moved to Boise seven years ago, not only set up a rivalry matchup against No. 1 Montana State in Wednesday afternoon’s championship game. It also completely changed the tenor of Montana’s roller-coaster season as the Lady Griz grabbed a post-season signature win that’s been absent since Robin Selvig retired.
All season long, the book on the Lady Griz, under both Brian Holsinger and Harris, has been that they can’t win if they don’t make 3s. On Tuesday, they won despite making just six 3s and shooting under 30% from behind the arc for the second consecutive day in Boise.
Point guard Mack Konig, who’s experienced more ups and downs than anybody on the roster but has re-found her shooting stroke at the very end of the season, poured in 29 points, including a go-ahead pull-up jumper with 37 seconds left that put the Lady Griz ahead 67-65 – a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.
And Harris, who found himself unexpectedly elevated to the head chair midseason when Holsinger was first put on administrative leave and then resigned, went toe-to-toe tactically with NAU’s Loree Payne, one of the top established coaches in the conference.
“(Montana) stepped up, and they performed in the fourth quarter,” said Payne, who’s team had been in four straight championship games.. “You know, Montana’s playing really well right now. And I think we needed to play a little bit better collectively to win this game.”
Putting together a defensive gameplan against Payne’s Lumberjacks is dicey at the best of times – they averaged 80.3 points this season, tops in the Big Sky by far. And for most of Tuesday’s game, it looked like Harris’s strategy of leaving single coverage on Glancey, a unanimous first-team all-conference selection, and staying home on NAU’s array of 3-point shooters would backfire.
After starting 1 of 6 from the field, Glancey went on a tear, putting up a monster 29-point, 14-rebound double-double in her hometown despite Bartsch’s best efforts to contain her on an island without help.
Nyah Moran, a second-team all-conference selection, started hot and finished with 27 points on just 15 shots for the ‘Jacks, hitting 6 of 7 from beyond the arc.
But other than those two, the rest of the Lumberjacks combined to go just 3 of 24 for 11 points. NAU’s first-team all-conference point guard Taylor Feldman, who finished second behind Glancey in regular-season scoring, missed all eight of her field-goal attempts and had one point while primarily being guarded by MJ Bruno.
“Our game plan was understanding how much they go to Sophie, how much she prefers to shoot one direction over her shoulder and then trying to take that away,” Harris said. “You can’t take it away from a kid that good, but just try to make it as difficult as possible. And it allowed us to stay out on a lot of their other kids.
“And as (Glancey) is probably one of the two best players in the league, it’s a dangerous play to be like, hey, we’re going to kind of look to give her the ball there. We’re not gonna double her, we’re gonna try to make it as inefficient as possible.”
On offense, Konig relentlessly punished NAU’s switch-happy defensive scheme, getting a big on her and getting to the rim en route to a 9 for 15 shooting night with nine more points at the free-throw line and five assists.
It was the latest data point in a late-season resurgence for the point guard, who won Big Sky Freshman of the Year over Glancey two seasons ago and made the all-tournament team a year ago but seemingly stalled out as a junior.
With tape on her right hand affecting her shot, she entered the final three games of the regular season having made just 18 3s at a clip under 22%, and had reached double figures in just six of 14 conference games to that point.
But starting two weekends ago against Sacramento State, she’s now scored at least 16 points in five straight games and made nine 3-pointers on 13 attempts during that stretch, including a 2 for 3 effort on Tuesday.
Against Northern Arizona, a late-game adjustment to have Bartsch slip screens led to a few crucial layups and kickout 3-pointers, but there was no question in the final minute that the ball would be in Konig’s hands.
With the clock ticking down and the game tied, she got Glancey switched onto her one last time, crossed over right at the top of the key, then crossed back to her left and dropped in a smooth 10-footer over the backpedaling big.
“Actually, I was really frustrated with the way they were playing me,” Konig said. “But I feel like we just kept on going after it, kept on trying to find new ways to score against their switches. We hit Dani a couple times on her slip, which we maybe should have utilized a couple times more.
“Then for the last shot, it’s just something that has developed in my game the last few games, and I just felt like it was the right time. So yeah, it was good.”
A few minutes later, Konig was jumping into her teammates’ arms as the buzzer sounded, making it official.
Northern Arizona, top-100 in the NET rankings, was not going to the title game for the fourth season in a row for a much-assumed and -anticipated No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup against Montana State.
Instead, the Lady Griz are – and based on what they’ve shown over the last two days in Boise, they’re bringing a different Lady Griz team than they’ve been for most of the season.
“It feels amazing,” Bartsch said. “Three years in Boise, Northern Arizona has knocked us out twice in the time I’ve been here. So going out with a bang and finally getting to feel what it’s like going to the chipper, it’s huge. This is what we play the whole season for, and so to be playing our best during this week, there’s nothing more I could ask for.”
