Basketball Brawl II is Saturday at UM

The Montana Grizzlies want to continue a stretch of dominance, and the Lady Griz want to slow one down.

The basketball version of Brawl of the Wild hits the Adams Field House Saturday, first with a 2 p.m. battle between Montana State and the host Lady Griz on Robin Selvig Court. 

The Cats and Griz men’s nightcap is at 7 p.m.

While the Lady Griz lead the intrastate series 80-37, MSU has won 15 of the last 18 matches, including a 64-55 win in Bozeman on Jan. 20. Montana led 19-5 after seven minutes, then faded.

Carmen Gfeller leads the Lady Griz (16-7 overall, 8-4 in Big Sky Conference), and notably had 34 points in one of her team’s few recent wins over the Bobcats, in 2022. She is on pace to become just the fourth Lady Griz to shoot 50 percent for her career, and — thanks to Covid-19 — she’ll play her 10th game against MSU Saturday.

Another leader is Dani Bartsch: The sophomore out of Helena Capital leads the Big Sky in rebounding at 9.9 per game.

For Montana State (15-4, 8-4 in the Big Sky) Madison Hall has hit double figures 15 games in a row, and is averaging 11.1 points and three rebounds. The former Madison Jackson (she was married this past summer) averaged 17 points while MSU split its games with league leaders Northern Colorado (61-40 win) and Northern Arizona (71-58 loss). Montana also split with a loss to NAU last week.

Katelyn Limardo, who was hurt late in MSU’s win over UM in January, has returned to the lineup after a brief absence and leads the team in scoring (11.6 ppg) and rebounding (6.7). 

Montana’s men won 87-77 at Bozeman on Jan. 20, and would like to avenge a rare home loss to MSU under coach Travis DeCuire: The Cats won for the first time in eight tries enroute to last season’s Big Sky title.

DeCuire-coached teams are 13-4 against the Cats, and UM (16-9, 7-5 in league) lead the series 155-151 all time. Guards Aanen Moody (15.1 points per game), Money Williams (14.3 ppg) and Brandon Whitney (10.6) lead the Griz. Whitney is the top assist man at 4.4 a game; senior Dischon Thomas adds 11.7 points and 5.6 rebounds a game.

Robert Ford III, a 6-foot-5 guard, leads MSU (11-14 overall, 6-6 in the Big Sky) with 15.9 points and 8.0 rebounds a game. Guard Brian Goracke checks in at 14.6 ppg, and sophomore forward Brandon Walker scores at 13.7 clip. It was Walker that went 8-for-8 against the Griz in the first meeting, scoring 18 points.

First-year Bobcat coach Matt Logie is from the same high school, Mercer Island outside Seattle, as DeCuire. DeCuire was an assistant at Mercer Island during Logie’s prep career and then coached Sammamish against Mercer Island when Logie was a senior.

After that Logie, as head coach of NAIA Whitworth, took his team to Missoula for exhibition games against the Griz four times from 2014-18.