Montana
Lady Griz drop heartbreaker at Dahlberg – University of Montana Athletics
Showing a heightened tenacity on the defensive end and a depth of 3-point shooting that will create problems for every opponent Montana faces this season, Harris’s Lady Griz had the Cougars right where they wanted them in the closing minutes at Dahlberg Arena.
Montana led 69-64 with just over three minutes remaining but BYU made the winning plays down the stretch, a pull-up jumper in the lane, a 3-pointer with 2:03 that tied it and a game-winning free throw with 1:13 left that proved to be the final point of the game.
After the teams traded possessions in the final minute, Montana had the ball, down one, the shot clock turned off and shooters that had made 14 3-pointers on the night spaced around the arc.
But potential 3-pointer No. 15 was off the mark and the buzzer sounded before anyone could do anything with the rebound. It was a hard-to-take result on a night that left fans looking at the months ahead and thinking, okay, this team could be really good.
“A step in the right direction,” said an understandably disappointed Harris after the game. “I told the team, the easy thing to do is to focus on the result, which I’ll try my hardest not to do as well.
“We had a Big 12 team on the ropes and had some great looks down the stretch. Did enough defensively. Really disappointed for our kids. I felt like this could have been a great opportunity to taste victory.”
It was a match-up that was hard to make heads or tails of before tip, BYU racing out to a 4-0 start to the season, all the wins coming at home against a lineup of mid- to low-packers, Montana opening 1-3 but facing a brutal stretch of games against Oregon, Washington and South Dakota State.
BYU’s largest lead on Wednesday was seven, in the opening period. Montana’s was five, in the final period. In between was Montana’s 3-point shooting going back and forth with BYU’s stronger inside presence in a game full of drama and emotion. November basketball at its best.
Playing without last season’s Big 12 Freshman of the Year and this year’s leading scorer, Delaney Gibb, BYU still looked like it might run away with the game in the first quarter, getting out to leads of 16-9 and 18-11.
That’s when Montana seemed to draw a line in the sand, its on-ball defense, in particular, going from being there to straight-up disruptive.
The Lady Griz scored 10 points over the final 2:40 of the first quarter, highlighted by back-to-back 3-pointers from freshman Rae Ehrman, and ended the period down just one, 20-19.
BYU would not shoot as well in any of the final three periods as the Cougars did in the first.
“We need to focus on the growth and what we got out of today, which was learning that when you guard, good things happen,” said Harris.
“I thought we guarded with a lot more intensity than we’ve shown all year. Were there mistakes? Sure, but I thought the effort and the intensity were there in a big way.”
The Cougars led 38-34 at the half, 55-54 after three quarters, setting up the dramatic final period.
Had Montana won, the hero would have been Mack Konig, who was special even without the W. She scored 19 points and added four assists, scoring six in the fourth quarter on strong drives through the gaping holes in the Cougar defense, Harris’s game plan for his program coming to life in real time.
A Macy Donarski 3-pointer gave Montana a 62-59 lead and an advantage it would hold for more than five minutes, a Konig finish at the basket making it 64-61, an Ehrman three making it 67-62, another Konig left-handed finish at the rim making it 69-64.
There were only three-some minutes to go and BYU had no answer for Montana’s spread offense. But Konig’s basket at 3:37 would be the final points of the game for the Lady Griz.
Marya Hudgins, who scored a game-high 23 points, breathed life into the Cougars when her pull-up made it a three-point game, 69-66.
The game flipped in a span of nine seconds, a Montana three from the corner missing with 2:12 to go and BYU hitting its own corner three with 2:03 left that tied it. What could have been a six-point lead was now a game deadlocked.
Neither team would score a basket the rest of the way, a free throw by Hudgins with 73 seconds left the final point.
After taking possession with 20 seconds left, Konig played the clock down to 10 seconds before initiating what Montana hoped was the game-winning sequence.
She drove, kicked it to Donarski, who drove and passed back to Konig, who got the ball of Jocelyn Land just to the side of the top of the key, the player who made eight threes on Saturday against South Dakota State.
It was an open but contested look, Hudgins doing her best to disrupt Land’s focus with a no-foul fly-by. The stroke was pure, the shot a bit to the right. Ball game. Heartbreak.
“We were right there with a fantastic look that I’d take 10 times out of 10 to win the game,” said Harris. “We have to keep plugging. We cannot let the results slow down or stunt the growth that we made tonight.”
Montana had its best offensive balance of the season, with Konig finishing with 19, her fifth time this season with 11 or more points, Ehrman adding 12 off the bench on four 3-pointers, and Waddington scoring 10 points, matching a career high with 13 rebounds and blocking a career-high four shots.
Donarski scored eight, Kennedy Gillette eight off the bench, Land six.
Montana has now made 13, 16 and 14 3-pointers the last three games on better-than-solid 36.4 percent shooting from the arc. The Lady Griz entered the night one of 15 teams in the nation averaging 10 or more threes made, a number that will only tick up after Wednesday.
Montana will go Big Ten to Big Ten to the nation’s top-ranked mid-major team to Big 12 to Big 12 when the Lady Griz host Utah (3-1) on Saturday, Nov. 29.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Montana State squares off with Illinois State Monday night in the FCS national championship game at FirstBank Stadium on the campus of Vanderbilt University. Kickoff is set for 5:30 p.m. and the game will be broadcast on ESPN.
The Bobcats are making their third trip to the title game in the past five seasons under coach Brent Vigen. The program is seeking its first championship since 1984.
MTN Sports has been on the ground in Nashville for the past five days covering the lead-up to the game, including the pregame show “Bobcat Built: Montana State’s Championship Quest” hosted by Scott Breen and Kyle Hansen.
In it the MTN staff provides game previews, features, facts and figures and sights and sounds from the past several days in Music City in the run-up to the game. To watch, see the video reel below.
Watch: Bobcat Built – Montana State’s Championship Quest
Bobcat Built: Montana State’s Championship Quest
Past Montana State football players meet with current Bobcats during a team walk-through at the indoor practice facility at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026.Kyle Hansen / MTN Sports
Past Montana State football players meet with current Bobcats during a team walk-through at the indoor practice facility at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026.Kyle Hansen / MTN Sports
Past Montana State football players meet with current Bobcats during a team walk-through at the indoor practice facility at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026.Kyle Hansen / MTN Sports
Past Montana State football players meet with current Bobcats during a team walk-through at the indoor practice facility at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026.Kyle Hansen / MTN Sports
Past Montana State football players meet with current Bobcats during a team walk-through at the indoor practice facility at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026.Kyle Hansen / MTN Sports
Past Montana State football players meet with current Bobcats during a team walk-through at the indoor practice facility at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026.Kyle Hansen / MTN Sports
Past Montana State football players meet with current Bobcats during a team walk-through at the indoor practice facility at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026.Kyle Hansen / MTN Sports
Past Montana State football players meet with current Bobcats during a team walk-through at the indoor practice facility at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026.Kyle Hansen / MTN Sports
Past Montana State football players meet with current Bobcats during a team walk-through at the indoor practice facility at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026.Kyle Hansen / MTN Sports
Past Montana State football players meet with current Bobcats during a team walk-through at the indoor practice facility at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026.Kyle Hansen / MTN Sports
Past Montana State football players meet with current Bobcats during a team walk-through at the indoor practice facility at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026.Kyle Hansen / MTN Sports
Past Montana State football players meet with current Bobcats during a team walk-through at the indoor practice facility at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026.Kyle Hansen / MTN Sports
Past Montana State football players meet with current Bobcats during a team walk-through at the indoor practice facility at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026.Kyle Hansen / MTN Sports
Past Montana State football players meet with current Bobcats during a team walk-through at the indoor practice facility at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026.Kyle Hansen / MTN Sports
Past Montana State football players meet with current Bobcats during a team walk-through at the indoor practice facility at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026.Kyle Hansen / MTN Sports
Past Montana State football players meet with current Bobcats during a team walk-through at the indoor practice facility at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026.Kyle Hansen / MTN Sports
Past Montana State football players meet with current Bobcats during a team walk-through at the indoor practice facility at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026.Kyle Hansen / MTN Sports
Past Montana State football players meet with current Bobcats during a team walk-through at the indoor practice facility at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026.Kyle Hansen / MTN Sports
Past Montana State football players meet with current Bobcats during a team walk-through at the indoor practice facility at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026.Kyle Hansen / MTN Sports
Past Montana State football players meet with current Bobcats during a team walk-through at the indoor practice facility at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026.Kyle Hansen / MTN Sports
Past Montana State football players meet with current Bobcats during a team walk-through at the indoor practice facility at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026.Kyle Hansen / MTN Sports
Montana
Miley Cyrus Debuts Hannah Montana-Inspired Hair Transformation to Tease 20th Anniversary Plans
Though she hasn’t revealed what a celebration of the show’s legacy would look like, she did share why it’s so important for there to be one at all.
“For me, I love looking back at the growth for both of us because it’s very rare that someone grows up with their fanbase,” she explained. “When I was 15 years old, I’d look out and see 15-year-olds and now I’m a grown woman, I look out and see other grown people. So, what I want to do is honor the longevity of the relationship that we built.”
Having earned a Disney Legend award last year for her iconic role, the LOL star emphasized how the double-life pop star was so much more than a TV show character.
“Hannah Montana, it outgrew the fantasy,” she continued. “It became the reality of my life. Something that was about a regular girl getting to have this extraordinary life by being someone that she’s not and then turning my life and having this life because of being who I really am and authenticity. So getting to celebrate that—20 years is a long time.”
For a look back at Miley’s life from ordinary girl to rock star, read on…
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