For those of you too young to remember, or those of you whose facts are hazy (hello Mouse!), I'd urge you go dig into the archives at GoGriz, as I did last night, and take a stroll down memory lane--when the Lady Griz were the Almighty Lady Griz. Here are a few things you'd discover:
1. An article rating the Lady Griz as the #7 women's program in the entire country;
2. Those fabulous media guides, with their wonderfully creative covers;
3. The headlines created by Shannon Cate, especially in her senior year when she was a Kodak All-American;
4. Finally, some facts for the notorious fact-checker Mousegriz, who "corrected" me on another thread thusly:
a. "Almost beat Stanford in Missoula (not Palo Alto)," when I said we almost beat them in Palo Alto;
b. "Didn't play or give Cheryl Swoopes' Texas Tech a good game. Texas Tech with Swoopes played in regionals in Missoula one year; Lady Griz weren't in it," when my memory was that it was a close game.
IN FACT: The Lady Griz played Stanford at least twice back in the 80's and 90's. The game in 1987-88 may well have been played in Missoula, when we lost to Stanford 74-72 in overtime. But later, in the '93-94 season, we lost in Palo Alto 66-62, a game I vividly remember because, well, I was there.
Flash forward to 1996-97, when we played Texas Tech and Sheryl Swoopes, a game I did not see but remembered as being close, and GoGriz confirms the final: Texas Tech 47, Montana 45. Does that suggest we "weren't in it?"
Alas, the big schools saw the potential for revenue in the women's game and expanded their recruiting (even into Montana), the while the Lady Griz recruited from a limited population area, mostly Montana and the rural parts of the Pacific Northwest, and watched the bigger programs almost literally speed past them. To go back to the GoGriz archives is not only to recall the true glory days of Lady Griz basketball, but to speculate on what coulda-shoulda been with this program.
1. An article rating the Lady Griz as the #7 women's program in the entire country;
2. Those fabulous media guides, with their wonderfully creative covers;
3. The headlines created by Shannon Cate, especially in her senior year when she was a Kodak All-American;
4. Finally, some facts for the notorious fact-checker Mousegriz, who "corrected" me on another thread thusly:
a. "Almost beat Stanford in Missoula (not Palo Alto)," when I said we almost beat them in Palo Alto;
b. "Didn't play or give Cheryl Swoopes' Texas Tech a good game. Texas Tech with Swoopes played in regionals in Missoula one year; Lady Griz weren't in it," when my memory was that it was a close game.
IN FACT: The Lady Griz played Stanford at least twice back in the 80's and 90's. The game in 1987-88 may well have been played in Missoula, when we lost to Stanford 74-72 in overtime. But later, in the '93-94 season, we lost in Palo Alto 66-62, a game I vividly remember because, well, I was there.
Flash forward to 1996-97, when we played Texas Tech and Sheryl Swoopes, a game I did not see but remembered as being close, and GoGriz confirms the final: Texas Tech 47, Montana 45. Does that suggest we "weren't in it?"
Alas, the big schools saw the potential for revenue in the women's game and expanded their recruiting (even into Montana), the while the Lady Griz recruited from a limited population area, mostly Montana and the rural parts of the Pacific Northwest, and watched the bigger programs almost literally speed past them. To go back to the GoGriz archives is not only to recall the true glory days of Lady Griz basketball, but to speculate on what coulda-shoulda been with this program.