Montana women’s basketball coach Robin Selvig begins his 32nd season with the Lady Griz in 2009-10. Selvig, who is in his 37th year as either a player or a coach at his alma mater, led Montana to one of its most successful seasons in 2008-09 and along with way reached some impressive personal milestones.
The Lady Griz went 28-5 last winter, matching the program record for wins in a season. They posted a 15-1 mark in Big Sky Conference play to win their third straight and 22nd regular-season conference championship, all of which have come under Selvig’s guidance.
Montana hosted and won the Big Sky tournament, which earned the program its 18th trip to the NCAA tournament.
In recognition of the team’s success, Selvig won his 19th conference coach of the year award.
Selvig coached senior guard Mandy Morales to Big Sky Conference MVP honors, Selvig’s 12th conference most valuable player. Morales capped her career by being named an honorable mention Associated Press All-American. She became the first Lady Griz player to earn honorable mention all-America honors all four years of her career.
At season’s end, Selvig had a 31-year record of 725-204.
With the team’s 59-57 overtime victory over Illinois in Cancun, Mexico, last November, Selvig reached career victory No. 700. By winning his 700th game in 899 games coached, Selvig matched former Texas coach Jody Conradt as the fifth-fastest coach in NCAA men’s or women’s Division I basketball history to reach 700 victories.
Legendary Kentucky coach Adolph Rupp tops the list, reaching 700 wins in his 836th game coached. Current Tennessee coach Pat Summitt hit 700 in her 847th game, former UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian in his 876th game and current Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer in her 885th game.
The 2009-10 season will be Selvig’s 37th year of affiliation with University of Montana athletics. He was a four-year member of the Grizzly basketball team (1970-71 to 1973-74), coached the men’s freshman team in 1974-75 and was named UM’s women’s basketball coach in the summer of 1978, following a three-year stint coaching high school girls’ basketball in Plentywood, Mont.
In his first 31 seasons with the Lady Griz, Selvig has posted 29 winning seasons and 27 20-win seasons, the latter a feat surpassed only by Summitt (33 20-win seasons), C. Vivian Stringer (30) and Conradt (29) at the women’s Division I level.
He has coached one Kodak All-American, 12 conference MVPs, 80 all-conference performers and 109 academic all-conference selections.
When he was hired in 1978, Selvig inherited a program that had gone 11-27 the two seasons prior to his arrival. His first team (1978-79) came in at .500 (13-13), his second team (1979-80) won 19 games and his third team (1980-81) went 22-8 and won the program’s first conference championship.
The success has continued with little interruption for over three decades.
Montana’s success has been achieved with remarkable consistency and has been accomplished with similar traits year after year: stifling team defense, nationally-recognized home crowd support that has resulted in an incredible home-court advantage and remarkable year-in and year-out league performance.
Team Defense
Seven different Montana teams have led the nation in a defensive category. The trend started early in Selvig’s career, when his fourth team, in 1981-82, led the country in points allowed (53.3/g). Four more times the Lady Griz would lead the nation in scoring defense. Twice they have ranked first in field goal percentage defense.
Montana limited opponents to 34.7 percent shooting in 2008-09, which led the Big Sky Conference by a wide margin and ranked ninth nationally.
The Lady Griz also led the Big Sky in 3-point field goal percentage defense (.286) and scoring defense. Montana’s 55.5 points allowed led the league by nearly 10 points per game.
Far from a one-sided team, Montana averaged 69.4 points per game offensively and ranked first in the Big Sky Conference in both overall shooting (.427) and 3-point field goal shooting (.347).
Home Support
Prior to Selvig’s first year, Montana women’s basketball games were attended by an average of fewer than 200 fans per game. Soon the Lady Griz, who have relied primarily on Montana-raised talent, became an attraction that only a handful of programs in the nation can match for consistency.
By 1982-83 Montana had cracked the 1,000 mark for average attendance. Just five years later, in 1987-88, the average had increased to 3,119 fans per game, which ranked sixth nationally, and the fans have continued flooding into Dahlberg Arena.
Montana averaged a program-high 5,235 fans per game in 1994-95.
The Lady Griz ranked 30th nationally last winter with an average attendance of 3,826. That average finished just behind North Carolina and just ahead of Ohio State.
That support has made Dahlberg Arena one of the toughest places to play in America. Montana has gone 431-45 (.905) in home games under Selvig, with a sparkling 422-39 (.915) record at Dahlberg Arena. Only Tennessee, Connecticut and Louisiana Tech enjoy more of a home-court edge.
The Lady Griz went 17-1 at home last winter and have produced eight seasons with a perfect home record.
Conference Dominance
Montana’s success in league play (first the Northwest Women’s Basketball League, then the Mountain West Conference and now the Big Sky Conference) under Selvig came about immediately and hasn’t slowed down.
He took a team that went 4-19 in league play in 1977 and ’78 and turned it into a second-place finisher in the NWBL with his first team in 1978-79.
Selvig’s first 20 teams would finish either first or second in their conferences. Through his first 31 seasons, Selvig’s teams have had only three seasons when they haven’t won the championship or finished as runner-up.
Montana has gone 384-66 in league play under Selvig, an .853 winning percentage.
Grizzly in His Blood
While Selvig is entering his 32nd season as coach of the Lady Griz, his association with the University goes back to the fall of 1970, when the Outlook, Mont., native matriculated at UM as a student-athlete.
Selvig was a four-year member of the Grizzly basketball team, earning second team All-Big Sky honors as a senior. In his final year of competition he was awarded the John Eaheart Award as the team’s top defensive player and the Grizzly Cup, an annual award given to the Department of Athletics’ best all-around athlete, scholar and person.
Selvig played his final three years for former Griz and Michigan State coach Jud Heathcote. Montana went 19-8 Selvig’s senior season, tying for the Big Sky Conference regular-season title with an 11-3 league record.
Selvig graduated in the spring of 1974 with a degree in health and physical education.
After coaching the Montana men’s freshman team to a 10-8 record in 1974-75, Selvig took over the girls’ basketball program at Plentywood High, where he totaled a 38-24 record over three seasons.
Selvig was hired by UM Director of Athletics Harley Lewis June 6, 1978, taking over a team that had gone 7-13 the previous season under Eddye McClure.
Selvig’s first Montana team finished 13-13 and in second place in the NWBL Mountain Division and, in a sign of things to come, led the league in scoring defense.
Montana’s modest improvement to .500 in Selvig’s first year blossomed into a stretch of success that rivals any team’s in the country.
After going 19-10 in 1979-80, Montana went 22-8 in 1980-81 and won the program’s first league title. Those years started a string of 19 consecutive winning seasons and 18 straight 20-win seasons.
Montana made its first of 22 national tournament appearances in 1981-82, losing a tight 57-52 decision to Wayland Baptist in the opening round of the AIAW national tournament in Berkeley, Calif.
After coaching Montana in the NWBL for four seasons, Selvig and the Lady Griz moved to the Mountain West Conference in 1982-83. Montana dominated that league for six seasons, going 78-6 in conference play, winning five regular-season league titles and four postseason conference championships and earning four NCAA tournament trips.
In 1982-83 Montana made its first trip to the NCAA tournament, losing at Louisiana-Monroe, 72-53.
In 1983-84 the No. 4 seed Lady Griz had a breakthrough victory when they won their first NCAA tournament game, a 56-47 home-court victory over No. 5 Oregon State.
Starting in 1987-88, Selvig would take Montana to the NCAA tournament 10 of the next 11 seasons.
When the Lady Griz began Big Sky Conference play in 1988-89, the success they had in the NWBL and MWC did not stop. Montana won the first three Big Sky Conference women’s basketball titles with perfect 16-0 marks.
The team has gone 273-45 (.858) in Big Sky play, winning 15 conference titles in 21 seasons.
Selvig has been recognized often for his coaching. He won his first conference coach of the year award after the 1981-82 NWBL season. Eighteen more league accolades have followed, with five Mountain West and 13 Big Sky Conference coach of the year awards.
Selvig has also been named the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) District VII Coach of the Year nine times.
Following the 1990-91 season, Selvig was one of three finalists for national coach of the year honors.
He was inducted into the Grizzly Basketball Hall of Fame in February 1983 and the Grizzly Sports Hall of Fame in 2001.
An influential member of the Missoula community, Selvig has served as the director of the Montana Special Olympics and as a spokesman for Missoula Youth Homes.
A native of Outlook, Mont., Selvig came from a family of eight children. His brother, Doug, and sister, Sandy, were both University of Montana basketball letterwinners. His nephew, Derek, is a sophomore on the Grizzly men’s basketball team.
Selvig and his wife, Janie, have two adult sons. Jeff and wife Mariana live in Los Angeles. Dan resides in San Francisco.