This is the first in a series of four posts on the Lady Griz basketball team, discussing the past season and a look ahead to next season. Part 1 Season Wrap up, Part 2 Look ahead: Bigs, Part 3 Look Ahead: Wing players and Part 4 Look Ahead: Recruits.

Part 1 Season Wrap

Of the write ups on the D-1 Montana basketball team, this one on the lady Griz has been the toughest for me to get my head around. Of all of the Lady Griz teams I have observer going back to 1980 this coming team has had a more of a feeling of transition team than any of the other I have watched between seasons. To that extent I purposely went out and started to talk to a lot of basketball savvy folk who are familiar with the Griz to get there opinions and to bounce some of mine off of them. The Lady Griz team 2009-10 fascinates me. The Lady Griz lose a lot of very talented players at the most of the key positions on the floor. On face value. Though, it is unclear who will fill those spots next year. Still though, in my close 30 years of watching Robin Selvig he has NEVER failed to put together a team that did not challenge for the league championship. I find this very interesting.

This past year’s Lady Griz team seems to have the whole package, to be very successful in the Big Sky conference. Nice height, more athleticism and speed than I can ever remember a Selvig team having, a star point guard, a star inside presence, one of the best perimeter shooters in the programs history, and an interior defensive stopper. Also put into the mix some nice role players and great team chemistry and this team was ready to roll. About the only thing this team did not have was true low post center, but they did have former starter 6-2 Tamara Guardipee who they could bring in to give them a physical presence at times, but Tamara slowed down this team quite a bit, and did not play to their strengths. The team actually reminded me of some of the Selvig teams in the late 80’s and 90’s.

The thing that was not like the late 80’s is that Selvig could not simply breeze though the conference on his way to winning the league. Back then, it seemed that Selvig’s second team could place in the top ½ of the conference. The Big Sky Conference is much more competitive now than then and Portland State pushed the Griz for all they were worth, but in the end the Griz squeaked out the conference regular season championship, from Portland State on the last day of the season. Then seven days later, in a rematch the Griz won the tournament championship and NCAA tourney berth, with another close win over PSU. In the NCAA’s The Griz really gave Pittsburg all they can handle in the first half by leading much of the first 20 minutes, then Pitt said lets play to our strong points. Pittsburg came out in the second half and played to the Lady Griz weakness, speed and athleticism, and blew the doors off the Griz’s hopes for an upset.

Now there has been a lot of bitching from some about why Selvig did not make an adjustment, or do something to stem the Pittsburg onslaught in the second half, even one Egriz’er who suggested assistant coach Shannon Cate should be given the reigns of the Lady Griz program because somehow, she could have done a better job against Pitt. To the second point, do you think if Shannon had the solution to that press, but she just chose to keep her mouth shut? If she had the solution, Selvig would have used it. Now to the first and major point and that is “players play and coaches coach”. At a certain point there is nothing a coach can do, if players do not make plays. I really hate to say this but athletically the Lady Griz players were simply not even in the same class as the Pitt players. Once Pitt got control of the tempo, that was all she wrote. I will give Selvig critics (all handful of you), that Selvig does take the responsibility for the players on his team and the style of basketball they play, but to that I will say Selvig recruits to win the Big Sky first. If Montana does not win the Big Sky conference there is almost no chance to he get a NCAA tourney invite. Over the past 10 or so years Selvig has recruited more athleticism, than he has ever had but he has not or will not recruit it at the expense of talent.

The lady Griz team once again this year continued their dominance of the Big Sky Conference, by winning their umpteenth conference Championship and their 17th NCAA tourney appearance. While it is easy to recap the past season the real interesting part of this series is going to be trying to get a feel as to what next years team is going to be like.