Nice Article on GoGriz

This is a basketball story. Not so much about X's and O's as it is about X and Y (chromosomes) and how that relates to W's.

It's about a coach who was willing to try something different after decades of watching it being done another way and discovering what so many others have believed to be true for so long.

It's about giving and receiving, and how in the best kind of partnerships those can be one and the same.

But mostly it's just a story about two guys -- roommates, Grizzly to their cores, expecting nothing in return -- who are trying to help the Montana women's basketball team be the best possible version of itself.

Go back a few years, to when Lady Griz assistant coach Mike Petrino was a first-year assistant to Joe Legerski at Wyoming. And into an early-season practice walks the program's male practice players.

Legerski wasn't the first to do it -- far from it -- but the idea was a novel one for Petrino, who was coaching Division I women's basketball for the first time.

Petrino had questions. Who were these guys? Where did they come from? How did Legerski most effectively employ them within a practice session? Is anybody else doing this?

"Joe always had a good line about his practice players. This is not a tryout for the men's team," says Petrino, who spent four years coaching under Legerski before joining the Colorado staff for the 2015-16 season. The Buffaloes also used male practice players.

"It's got to be someone who loves to play basketball, someone who's unselfish and knows that it's not about them. Joe also told me in-state guys are the best. They've grown up with the university, so there is some pride there." Hint: remember that.

The idea of using male practice players to up the level of athleticism, intensity and competiveness in practice dates back more than 40 years, when Pat Summitt -- big surprise there -- began using them at Tennessee shortly after being hired in 1974.

Summitt had not long before been playing on a team that competed internationally, and their best preparation came from practicing against teams made up of men.

So why not do the same thing when she got the job at Tennessee? "It was the most natural thing in the world for me," she said.

A few years after Summitt got her start at Tennessee, hired right after her playing career had concluded at Tennessee-Martin, Montana took a chance on a young coach as well: Robin Selvig.

For as much as their careers mirrored one another's -- building programs and, in a wider perspective, the sport of women's basketball from the ground up -- one thing Selvig never embraced was the idea of bringing men into his gym to practice with the Lady Griz.

His program may have helped lead the charge in the sport, putting it on the radar and attracting fans to arenas to watch it being played, but Selvig still stuck to some old-fashioned beliefs.

He never saw the value in sending his girls to the weight room, but he did so, grudgingly. He'd rather they used that time to play more basketball. And he never did budge on what is now common practice for a majority of the women's programs in the nation.

"He just didn't like the idea of it," recalls Shannon Schweyen, Selvig's assistant for 24 seasons before replacing the future Hall of Famer in July 2016. "We had some years when we talked about it, but that wasn't something he was ever going to do."

When Petrino joined Schweyen's first staff in August 2016, he not only brought the idea of practicing with male players with him, he pushed for it.

Schweyen wasn't resistant to the idea. She wasn't even hesitant. She probably just needed something to force her to take action.

That came in the least desirable way possible, when Kayleigh Valley was lost for the season, followed by Alycia Sims in the team's season opener. The team was not only getting low on numbers, the experience level of those remaining was alarming. Practices were suffering because of it.

"We talked about what we could do to have some more competitiveness at practice," says Schweyen, who at the time maybe saw more of the risk of bringing in some outside players -- male players -- than the possible reward.

After all, it was her first year as a head coach, and this was something she had zero experience with. She probably had the same questions Petrino asked in his first year with Legerski. How do you best use them? Where do you find them?

It didn't take long for her to become a convert. "I'm a firm believer now. I see the value in it," she says.

That's because Montana, in Petrino's words, lucked out. He may say that, but he also knew, from working with Legerski, what the program needed. Someone who would bring zero ego to the court, loved basketball and placed the program's needs at the forefront.

Among the first players to join the program last season, thanks to his connection with then assistant coach Eric Hays, was Brady Henthorn, who won a state title at Hellgate High in 2013 when Hays was assisting his son Jeff, who was the team's head coach.

There was a learning curve on both sides. Schweyen and her staff had to learn how to best use their new practice players, and Henthorn had to figure out how he could best fit in.

"It took me a couple of weeks to kind of adjust and understand the speed and intensity they wanted me to practice with," he says. "But honestly, most of the girls are so skilled that I can go pretty hard and not have to worry about it."

Turns out he was the perfect practice player. He was good but -- let's put this delicately -- not a Division I player himself. The coaches didn't have to worry. He wasn't going to dunk on anybody, but he did have some explaining to do.

"The main question I'm usually asked is, Do I go 100 percent?" he says. "It depends on what we're doing, but the girls are fast. They'll beat me up and down the court. They are extremely talented.

"If we're going 1-on-1, I've got to work to try to stop them. Some of them I can't. And if we're playing full-court defense against the point guards, you have to work to not get crossed up."

This is what you might be picturing: Montana's starters practicing against a team of guys, while most of the Lady Griz stand idly on the sideline, their spots taken by men. Does someone have the number of the local Title IX office?

That's what came up in 2006, when the NCAA's Committee on Women's Athletics suggested the practice of using male players be banned, arguing that it undermines the spirit of Title IX and gender equity, because every rep performed by a male practice player is one a female team member isn't getting.

The committee also determined that it "implies an archaic notion of male preeminence that continues to impede progress toward gender equity and inclusion" and that it "does much more harm than good in the long run and discriminates against some of our female athletes."

By that time, in 2006, a survey found that more than two-thirds of the nation's Division I women's basketball programs were using male practice players. The backlash was immediate.

Duke coach Joanne P. McCallie, then at Michigan State, told USA Today, "This is the politically correct gone awry. It's absolutely absurd. It's shortsighted. It's got nothing to do with equity and everything to do with politics."

Connecticut began using male practice players in the early 90s. The program's first national championship came in 1995. Ten more have followed. Coach Geno Auriemma says, it's "one of the most important aspects of our program."

Most coaches were comfortable admitting what the Committee on Women's Athletics was unwilling to. Yes, men are faster, stronger, quicker and can be more competitive than women. Can we move on please? This is a non-issue.

"They make us compete. They're taller. They're stronger. They're faster. And every day that we have to compete against that, I know it helps us," said June Daughterty, then the Washington head coach, now at Washington State. "It gets our energy up. It gets our confidence up."

Of course that furor all came (and went) more than a decade ago, back when Lady Griz junior point guard Sierra Anderson was ... playing against the boys.

"I was excited about it," she says about the day Schweyen first brought it up. "I've always had fun playing with guys in general. It's something I grew up doing. I think it's good for us. It keeps us all on our toes a little more. It can get a little stagnant playing against the same group of girls every single day."

Before you get the wrong idea, that Montana is the Committee on Women's Athletics' worst nightmare, keep this in mind as a visual: This season the Lady Griz are using two male practice players, and they work out with the team maybe two days a week.

So it's hardly taking away anyone's opportunities. Instead they do the dirty work, almost always playing defense, something Hays conveniently failed to mention when he recruited Henthorn to the position last year.

"He didn't tell me all the defense that was going to be involved," says Henthorn, who will graduate from Montana in May with a degree in exercise science. "But I love doing it, and I'm pretty proud of it."

It didn't take long into her first season for Schweyen to become convinced of the value Henthorn and the others added to her practices.

They forced the point guards to have to keep their dribble a little lower, a little closer to their bodies, lest they be stripped of the ball. Passes to initiate a play had to be sharp and on target, to the outside hand. Entry passes to a post player had to come with a ball fake.

All of it: good. Thanks to the tireless work of the volunteer players. "They present a challenge that we wouldn't otherwise get," Schweyen says.

When her players are doing close-out drills against one another, they may be quicker than their teammate with the ball. Success can come even if techniques are incorrect or sloppy. Not so when the guys are involved. Everyone has to be on.

When the guys are scheduled to attend, practices are prepared with that in mind. Let's use them. Let's push the girls.

"When they play against the guys, they know it's going to be tough," Schweyen says. "It's challenging for them, and the girls like that. I notice a higher level of competitiveness when the boys are there."

With the one-year experiment complete, the program wanted to continue the practice this season. But they needed another body. And not just anybody. Someone who was wired like Henthorn, to give himself over to the program.

He had just the person in mind: his roommate, Tommy Tirrell.

Athletic resume? Check. He won Class B state football titles at Missoula's Loyola Sacred Heart High School in 2012 and '13. His team, with Tirrell placing ninth overall, won the 2013 state golf championship. He finished state runner-up as an individual as a junior and senior.

And his senior-year basketball team was the Class B runner-up as well, which was all fine, but what about his school ties, something Legerski has found to be so important at Wyoming over the years, maybe more so than talent? Well, Tirrell's uncle is Bobby Hauck, if that means anything.

So, yeah, his blood runs Pantone 209, just like Henthorn's.

"In my years at Wyoming and Colorado, the two guys we have now are as good as I've ever seen," says Petrino. "They love basketball. They are very unselfish. It's whatever the team needs."

And what it needs is for the guys, who by NCAA rule can't be compensated outside of being given some practice gear, to be up early. The Lady Griz get after it starting at 6:45 a.m. most mornings.

It all goes down most days in a nearly empty fieldhouse, with no one watching or appreciating the time and effort they are putting in. There is zero glory in the position but neither Henthorn nor Tirrell was ever seeking any.

"They both love mornings. They both love getting up and getting something done before they start their days," says Schweyen. "They check their egos at the door and just give us great looks. On the days we have them, we try to use them to the best of our needs."

Tirrell, a junior at Montana, spent one semester at Carroll before transferring to his hometown school, where he is a business finance major and also currently knocking out an internship at a law firm.

He plays a little intramural basketball on the side, and he goes hard when he does. "When someone comes to screen you, you maybe run into them full speed to let them know you're there," says Tirrell, still a football player at heart. Blame (or credit) it on having 50 percent Hauck genes.

Of course that approach wasn't going to work in his role with the Lady Griz. Because everyone remembers the day Gabi Harrington got laid out going for a steal against a former practice player.

"She was going to have a steal and he wasn't going to let that happen, so he went after it and accidentally leveled her. It was pretty funny," says sophomore point guard McKenzie Johnston, who highlights an important truth. If anyone is expendable, it's the guys. Play hard but with caution, please.

"It took me a couple weeks to figure out my role and when to really step it up and when to stand back and let them run plays and get good looks," says Tirrell.

"You have to know your limits. You're just trying to give them a good look. You're not trying to make a spot on the team. You're out there for them and really trying to benefit them in every way possible."

Johnston's first year on the team, the season she redshirted, was Selvig's last as coach, meaning she's seen both sides. That first year she got a full helping of Haley Vining, day after day after day, without end.

Now she sees a little variety, since it's she and Anderson who get most of the matchups with the guys, who are often tasked with mimicking the players of an upcoming opponent or spearheading that team's style of play.

"I like when they're dogging us and making it a lot harder," Johnston says. "They understand how to replicate what the other team is going to be doing. There are probably some guys who would go too hard against us, but they bring the perfect amount."

Henthorn and Tirrell were at practice on Tuesday, creating as much havoc as possible, something the Ladyjacks of Stephen F. Austin will be trying to do on Thursday night.

"I feel way more prepared for our games after facing them," says Johnston. "It makes you confident going into the games. If you can get it past Brady and Tommy, you can get it past anyone. I think they're making us a lot better."

Henthorn is well into season No. 2 with the team, Tirrell into his first, and both have some sweat equity in the program, if not some bruises and floor burns. They've become more than just fans. They feel like they've become extended teammates, separate but equal, everyone working toward the same goal.

"After getting into it and getting personal with the coaches and players, I'm not surprised at all," says Henthorn, whose younger sister Darby was a regional qualifier in the javelin last spring for the Griz track and field program. "They are all awesome and make it enjoyable for us."

And the appreciation goes both ways. It has to or this would never work.

"They've become good friends with the girls and have taken a vested interest in the team. They are at our games and follow us when we're on the road. They've just been a joy to have around," says Schweyen. "I'm a firm believer now. I see the value in it."

Anderson, who spent two years playing for Selvig and is now in her second season with Schweyen, earned an undergraduate degree in May in political science. Since she pounded that out in just three years, she is now pursuing master's degrees in business administration and public administration.

So if there is one player, one who is well-spoken and opinionated, who might see the side of the position statement put out by the Committee on Women's Athletics more than a decade ago, it might be Anderson. But she isn't buying it.

At least not with the way it's being done at Montana, not with what Henthorn and Tirrell are providing the team. They are far from taking anything away. For them, it's all about giving.

"It's an interesting point," she says about the argument, then offers as a counterpoint something quite the opposite. "I think they are bringing opportunities to make us all better. Every day they are there, they make our team better."

And so they'll continue to toil away in obscurity, will Henthorn and Tirrell, working a couple of times a week to make the Lady Griz just a little bit better, to have them peaking in March.

You might pass them in the hallways of Dahlberg Arena before a game without even knowing it, but know this: Montana's bench extends farther than what you see on game day. There are others, hidden from view, helping in their own way.

Says Anderson, "We definitely lucked out with Tommy and Brady, to find people like that, who are just good guys who want to give back to our program and help build up our program."

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