BOISE, Idaho — It became clear at about 1 p.m. Saturday that Avery Waddington, Montana’s second leading scorer and top rebounder — would not play in the first round of the Big Sky Conference tournament at Idaho Central Arena.

Waddington was battling the onset of an illness since earlier in the morning that neither rest nor fluids could quell. Another starter — Jocelyn Land — wasn’t feeling her best, either, nor were two Lady Griz assistant coaches.

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Depleted Montana edges NAU, sets up 2nd-round rematch with Montana State at Big Sky tourney

Some kind of bug had infiltrated the Montana women’s basketball team. But coach Nate Harris and the remaining Lady Griz weren’t about to bug out of the postseason, and went on to claim a 61-60 victory over Northern Arizona to keep their season intact.

No. 8-seeded Montana (9-21) advanced to secure a matchup with No. 2 seed and rival Montana State (23-6) in a Big Sky second-round game on Sunday at 2:30 p.m.

“We just made it about, how hard can you play?” said Harris, who pumped his fist and celebrated with his team after NAU’s final shot rimmed off at the buzzer. “Everyone in here can defend their tail off, so let’s just get out there and guard, guard, guard and see if we can have one more point than the other team.”

Harris’ words proved to be prophetic. Montana won by surviving a last-second shot by Northern Arizona’s Naomi White, an attempt she had to work hard to create after taking an inbound pass with less than three seconds left.

With the way they bowed out of last year’s Big Sky tournament — on a last-second shot by Montana State’s Marah Dykstra in the championship game — the Lady Griz were grateful to be on the other end of the drama.

“There have been situations where that memory has kind of come up (this season) and made me really nervous, and definitely today was one of them,” UM’s Mack Konig said. “However, you learn from your mistakes, and I think our team was prepared to play until the very end, so that was great.”

After gutting it out in the first half, Montana’s Land left the game in the second half due to her malaise. But Konig scored a team-high 17 points and Rae Ehrman added 16 to pace the Lady Griz. Kennedy Gillette contributed 15 points and nine rebounds.

NAU’s White led all scorers with 24 points while hitting 10 of 10 from the foul line.

As Harris stated, defense did the trick for the Lady Griz. With that as a focus, and with players defending out of position, notably Gillette, Konig and Macy Donarski in the post, Montana held the Lumberjacks to 31.7% shooting and a 5-for-20 showing from 3-point range. White, one of the league’s best players, shot 6-for-22 from the floor.

The Lady Griz are moving on to a rematch with Montana State in the second round. The Bobcats won both regular-season matchups by an average of 27.5 points. Throw in the memory of last year’s title-game chaos, and it’s a matchup Montana is looking forward to.

“It just makes us really excited for (Sunday),” Gillette said. “Chloe (Larsen) said in the locker room that it’s hard to beat a team three times, so that kind of gives us some juice. We know what we need to do and what to focus on.”

“It’s not a hard answer, right?” Harris said. “You have to take care of the rock, you have to rebound and you have to match, if not exceed, their level of toughness. I think today was a great lesson moving into that game.”

Big Sky women’s tournament scoreboard

Saturday, March 7

Game 1: No. 9 Weber State 76, No. 10 Portland State 53

Game 2: No. 8 Montana 61, No. 7 Northern Arizona 60

Sunday, March 9

Game 3: No. 1 Idaho vs. No. 9 Weber State, 12 p.m.

Game 4: No. 2 Montana State vs. No. 8 Montana, 2:30 p.m.

Monday, March 10

Game 5: No. 4 Idaho State vs. No. 5 Sacramento State, 12 p.m.

Game 6: No. 3 Northern Colorado vs. No. 6 Eastern Washington, 2:30 p.m.

Tuesday, March 11

Game 7: Game 3 winner vs. Game 5 winner, 12 p.m.

Game 8: Game 4 winner vs. Game 6 winner, 2:30 p.m.

Wednesday, March 12

Game 9: Game 7 winner vs. Game 8 winner, 3 p.m., championship

This story contains discussion of suicide. If you or someone you care about may be at risk of suicide, contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988, or go to 988lifeline.org.

Staff at the nation’s largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility have placed bets on which detainee will be the next to die by suicide, according to new reporting from the Associated Press based on 911 calls and detainee accounts. 

Owen Ramsingh, a legal permanent resident who spent several weeks at the Camp East Montana detention facility in Texas, told AP that he overheard a security guard talking about a betting pool for which detainee would next die by suicide. The guard said he had paid $500 into the pot, which would all go to the winner with the most accurate predictions on detainees harming themselves. 

Without providing details, the Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told AP that Ramsingh, who was brought to the US at age 5 from the Netherlands, was lying about the suicide bets. 

In January, staff at Camp East Montana called 911 to request emergency help for Geraldo Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old from Cuba. DHS described his death as an attempted suicide. A medical examiner later ruled it a homicide. That same month, staff at the detention facility called 911 to report that a 36-year-old Nicaraguan man died by suicide. The AP reports that “detainees attempted to harm themselves while expressing suicidal ideations on at least six other occasions that resulted in 911 calls.”

Once the site of an internment camp for Japanese Americans during World War II, Camp East Montana is made up of six long tents at the Fort Bliss Army base outside of El Paso. On an average day, the facility holds around 3,000 detainees who are living in harsh conditions: They lack sufficient food and often go without proper medical care, according to AP’s review of 130 calls made to 911. Those calls took place in just about five months—from when the tents were quickly constructed in mid-August to January 20.

“Every day felt like a week. Every week felt like a month. Every month felt like a year,”Ramsingh said. He lived in Columbia, Missouri before being stopped at the airport by DHS and sent to Camp East Montana last year. Despite holding a green card and being married to a US citizen, he was deported to the Netherlands in February over a drug conviction from when he was a teenager (which he served prison time for). “Camp East Montana was 1,000% worse than a prison,” Ramsingh added. 

Ramsingh said that the alledged bets on who would die by suicide were especially difficult because he had contemplated suicide himself.

While ICE data shows that the average stay at the tents is around nine days, detainees can be stuck at the camp for months as the courts struggle to accommodate President Donald Trump’s mass detainment and deportation campaign. 

US House Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat who represents part of El Paso and has toured Camp East Montana, told AP that the facility “should not be operational.”

“It feels like this contractor is reinventing the wheel,” she said, “ and people are losing their lives in their experiment.”