Montana - they lumber

[Proud Griz Man]

Selvig: Pitt strong on boards
By GEORGE GEISE • Tribune Sports Editor • March 20, 2009

... coach Robin Selvig watched four Pittsburgh games on film before he left Thursday for Seattle, where the Lady Griz will meet the Panthers Saturday night at 6 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

But Selvig didn't need to watch too long before he figured out why 15th-ranked Pitt (23-7) was a No. 4 seed."Their biggest strength to me is they're a big-time rebounding team — something like seventh in the country," said Selvig."They're athletic and strong and all their players are 5-11 to 6-1, except for the 6-6 kid." Pitt is outrebounding opponents by 44 to 35, a huge margin in a tough conference like the Big East, which boasts odds-on NCAA favorite Connecticut as well as Louisville, which received a No. 2 seed. Pepper Wilson, a 6-6 freshman, averages 6.4 boards per game and has blocked 38 shots. The Panthers have 171 blocks as a team, 41 more than UM, which has just one starter taller than 5-11.

Selvig didn't see Pitt's 95-42 loss to UConn on film, but he watched two games against Louisville, as well as contests against Big East schools DePaul and West Virginia.

"Louisville beat them twice," said Selvig. "It was good stuff to look at. What really stands stand out is blocked shots and rebounding."
...

 

[Kadeezy]

.... Ena and the 13th-seeded Lady Griz (28-4) have enough to worry about in the fourth-seeded Panthers (23-7). They have a dangerous point guard in 5-foot-10 guard Shavonte Zellous, who averages 22.5 points per game and was named to the Lindy's preseason All-America second team list.

“Zellous is obviously their go-to person, but then there's a whole bunch of them who can hurt you,” said Montana coach Robin Selvig, whose team is shooting for its first NCAA tourney win since 1995. “They've got really good size. They start a 6-6 kid (freshman Pepper Wilson). The rest of them are like 5-11, 6-foot, 6-1. They don't have anybody small. They're good defensively, they can score it and they're pretty balanced.” Wilson is not the type of player to take over a game with an average of 6.8 points per game. But she did score 16 in a Big East tournament semifinal loss to No. 7 Louisville last week, and could make things mighty tough in the paint for Montana, whose tallest starter is 6-1 Britney Lohman. “The most important thing is to not get intimidated by it,” Ena said. “There's pluses and minuses to playing against a tall person. It's about positioning, footwork, heart and quickness. The 15th-ranked Panthers are just as talented but distinctly different than the Vanderbilt team Montana lost to in the tournament last season, 75-47.

# NAME HT/WT POS YR HOMETOWN/LAST SCHOOL
22 Chelsea Cole 6-3 Forward SO Lumberton, N.J./Rancocas Valley

# NAME HT/WT POS YR HOMETOWN/LAST SCHOOL
40 Shawnice Wilson 6-6 Center FR Pittsburgh, Pa./Westinghouse

# NAME HT/WT POS YR HOMETOWN/LAST SCHOOL
32 Selena Nwude 6-5 Forward RS SO Riverdale, Md./Eleanor Roosevelt

HOLY JEBUS! Athletic and TALL... Good luck LG! I'll be rooting for the Sky all the way!

 

[Proud Griz Man]

... SEATTLE - Crowds make a difference in college basketball.

No one knows that better than the Montana women's basketball team. It used a hometown lift to push past equally gifted Portland State twice in the past two weeks, earning a trip to the NCAA tournament.

Tonight, the Lady Griz will try to use a partisan crowd as an equalizer in a first-round game against 15th-ranked Pittsburgh at Hec Edmundson Pavilion. Four years ago, roughly 3,000 supporters made Montana feel at home in Seattle in an NCAA game against Vanderbilt.

... Lady Griz seniors Rogers, Morales, Lohman and Tam Guardipee have approached this year's NCAA trip differently than last year's. According to Guardipee, her team is on a mission to show everyone it belongs in the Big Dance. The Lady Griz have done little sightseeing in Seattle, with the highlight to this point being a visit to an Italian restaurant. Morales summed up her businesslike approach when a Pittsburgh reporter asked a playful question about her pregame musical tastes. "Actually, I didn't bring my iPod with me," she said.