UM top seed for Big Sky women

The Daily Inter Lake

Montana women's basketball team is the top seed and will host the Big Sky Conference Women's Basketball Tournament at Dahlberg Arena.

The event begins Thursday and ends Saturday.

Idaho State earned the No. 2 seed and, along with the Lady Griz, will have a bye until Friday night's semifinal round.

The Lady Griz won the Big Sky regular-season title with a 15-1 league mark (27-2 overall).

The Bengals (15-13, 11-5 BSC) finished in the three-way tie for second place with Weber State (16-13, 11-5 BSC) and Northern Arizona (18-11, 11-5 BSC), but earned the No. 2 seed with Saturday's 93-73 home-court victory over Sacramento State.

Weber State, losing at Idaho State Thursday and at Montana State on Saturday, fell to the No. 3 seed.

The Lumberjacks lost out on tiebreakers and dropped to No. 4, despite their 66-63 win Saturday at Eastern Washington.

Montana State (13-15, 8-8 ) and Portland State (12-17, 8-8) tied for fifth in the final standings, but the Bobcats earned the No. 5 seed and will face NAU, while the Vikings received the No. 6 seed and will play WSU.

Portland State defeated Northern Colorado Saturday afternoon, 77-63, at Portland.

The tournament championship game, which will decide the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, will be televised on Altitude Sports and Entertainment on Saturday at 7 p.m.

Montana is seeking its 17th conference post-season tournament title and its 17th trip to the NCAA tournament. A title would send the Lady Griz to their third NCAA tournament in the last four years.

The Lady Griz will be playing in their 25th consecutive post-season conference tournament. The first six conference tournaments came in the Mountain West Conference, while the last 19 have come in the Big Sky Conference.

Montana has a record of 40-8 in 24 previous conference tournaments.

The Lady Griz have hosted 16 post-season conference tournaments, going 31-1. The only loss came at the hands of Eastern Washington, 77-74, in the 1987 Mountain West Conference tournament championship game.

UM has hosted 11 of the 18 Big Sky Conference tournaments, going 22-0 in those games.

Tourney Schedule

Thursday

5:30 p.m. - No. 6 Portland State vs. No. 3 Weber State

7:30 p.m. - No. 5 Montana State vs. No. 4 Northern Arizona

Friday

5:30 p.m. - No. 2 Idaho State vs. highest remaining seed

7:30 p.m. - No. 1 Montana vs. lowest remaining seed

Saturday

7 p.m. - Championship game