![]() ![]() It took a village – rugged Dani Bartsch (14 rebounds, six blocks) took her turns, and the feisty Bruno was particularly impressive. She still got 24 on Monday, but it came on 23 shots – and none of it came over the last 71/2 minutes of the third quarter, when Montana pulled away. While Idaho had to deal with a merry-go-round of scorers – five Griz players scored between 10 and 15 points – Montana could largely focus its efforts on Kennedy Johnson, Idaho’s all-league wing who has averaged better than 17 points a game the last six weeks. It produced the first tournament win for Montana (22-8) since 2018. That burst included just one 3-pointer – from Central Valley grad MJ Bruno – and the usual inside grinding from Colfax’s Carmen Gfeller, but mostly it was a matter of spreading out and letting guards Mack Konig and Gina Marxen do their thing, often without the help of a ball screen. The death blow came after halftime, Montana putting together a 25-point quarter that stretched the lead to 59-35 at one point. That was on display from the opening tip, the Griz sprinting to a 20-11 after one quarter. ![]() You look at Montana – that’s a phenomenal blueprint for what that looks like. “That means creating a more balanced team, with inside and outside threats. “Obviously, you look around and this is a league that can score at a high level, and we have to continue to find ways to score the basketball,” she said. And so Eighmey carries a vision of Year 2. It’s a both a balanced and volatile mix: solid-to-excellent outside shooting, two difficult big forwards and hard-driving guards that love the open-floor game. The key is not to have to plug from that far behind.īut the Grizzlies can create that kind of space quickly, as they did Monday at Idaho Central Arena. “I loved our effort and our fight,” she acknowledged. The Vandals, buried in a 24-point hole from chasing around Montana’s gifted scorers, whittled that in half with four minutes still to play – the kind of scrap Eighmey might regard as the first building block for her program. Idaho closed out Eighmey’s first season as a Division I head coach with a 73-61 loss to Montana in the quarterfinals of the Big Sky Conference Basketball Championships – but with a little momentum, too. And a lot of it was to be seen in the jerseys across from them. Some of it is already in place for the Vandals women. BOISE – On Idaho’s last day of the 2024 basketball season, Carrie Eighmey got an eyeful of what she wants her team to look like down the road.
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