The Lady Griz have gotten a lot of help from their “friends” this season. Despite struggling mightily in conference play, and on the road in particular, they are still in the hunt for the top spot in the Big Sky Conference.

With two weekends of regular-season conference play left, surprising Eastern Washington still leads the pack with a 10-3 record and a two-game margin in the loss column over Portland State, the preseason favorite, and Montana, both at 8-5.

Only Northern Arizona and Weber State, with 10 losses apiece, are out of the post-season league tournament hunt. Talk about unfamiliar territory for those two teams!

Everybody else has a shot to make it to the post-season affair. Where Montana fits into the seeding picture depends on how the Lady Griz fare in their final three outings.

It starts with this Saturday afternoon’s home game against Montana State, a team the Lady Griz handled in Bozeman back on Jan. 23. After that, the Griz go on the dreaded road, albeit against bottom dwellers Northern Colorado and Northern Arizona.

After last weekend’s 100-83 loss at Sacramento State – a game with unwanted milestones like giving up 100 points for the first time in program history while losing to Sac State for the first time ever – it’s anybody’s guess how the Lady Griz will fare this weekend and beyond.

They badly need to find their shooting touch, and we’re not talking just outside shooting here. Even the area right under the basket has been a tough-score zone for Montana too often this season.

The inability to make even uncontested lay-ups early in the game at Sacramento State cost the Lady Griz a chance to build an early lead that might have changed the opposition’s mind set and approach for the rest of the game.

Other Big Sky teams have figured out that these are not the normal Lady Griz, giving them much more confidence than they’ve had in past years against Montana, even at Dahlberg Arena.

Montana State has fared well of late, and sits right behind Montana and Portland State in the standings.

What the Lady Griz can’t afford to lose is the support of their home fans. But that’s one thing that hasn’t changed during this season of struggles, even given the economy-caused downturn in attendance for both the UM men and women.

The Lady Griz fans who have been showing up at Dahlberg have been just as loyal and vociferous as ever.

They’re going to have to be Saturday if they want the Lady Griz to have any chance of gaining a first-round bye or decent seeding in the post-season tournament.

- Bill Schwanke