Montana St.-Washington Preview (Mar 14, 2017)
Now comes the tough part for No. 12 Washington: making sure the sequel somehow lives up to the original.
A year after making an improbable run to the Women's Final Four by authoring three upsets, the No. 3-seeded Huskies give it another try Saturday night at Alaska Airlines Arena in Seattle when they host Montana State in a 3-14 matchup of the Oklahoma City Region.
For Washington (27-5), it will be a new experience in two ways: It goes in as a favorite, and it is playing NCAA Tournament games at home. It hasn't played on its home floor in the NCAA tourney since 1995.
"We got to decide whether to stay in a hotel or stay in our own beds," Huskies coach Mike Neighbors said to the Seattle Times. "We got to decide all kinds of little things that we never had to think about before."
One decision Neighbors won't have to make is which player gets the ball. Point guard Kelsey Plum, a 5-foot-8 senior, is Division I's leading scorer at 31.7 points per game and recently overtook Jackie Stiles as the all-time career scoring leader in Division I.
One of five finalists for the Nancy Lieberman Award, given to the nation's top point guard, Plum's lofty stats aren't entirely the product of a high usage rate. She makes 53.3 percent of her field goal attempts, 42.9 percent on 3-pointers and 88.8 percent at the foul line.
And Plum isn't a one-woman show, either. Center Chantel Osahor tallies 15.7 points per game and leads Division I in rebounding at 15.4 per game. Washington averages 10.1 3-point makes a game and is outscoring opponents by more than 21 points per game.
Its opponent won't hesitate to launch from distance, either. The Bobcats (25-6) take nearly 23 3s per game and hit a respectable 33.7 percent of them, led by Big Sky Conference MVP Peyton Ferris. The 5-9 senior guard was good for 17.5 points and 7.5 rebounds per contest.
"It's going to be a fast pace and really up and down," Neighbors said. "Very, very aggressive and up-tempo. They won their league and any time you play a champion, it's a team that knows how to win."
Ferris scored 23 points when Montana State locked down its second NCAA berth on March 11 in Reno, edging Idaho State 62-56 for the Big Sky tournament championship. Teammate Riley Nordgaard added 16 points, including a critical 3-pointer in the last three minutes that gave the Bobcats a 55-47 lead.
"When you talk about tournament time, it's when your experience and seniors need to carry your team," said 12th-year Montana State coach Tricia Binford. "I felt like they did that."
The winner of this game will meet either Oklahoma or Gonzaga on Monday night for a berth in the Sweet 16.
