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The Montana women's basketball team will embark on perhaps its most important road trip of the season this week when it plays games at Montana State and Idaho State. The Lady Griz will face the Bobcats at 2 p.m. Saturday at Bozeman and the Bengals at 7 p.m. Monday at Pocatello.

Why it's critical and loaded with possibilities: Montana (12-9, 5-3 BSC) enters the second half of the Big Sky Conference schedule in fourth place. The Lady Griz are tied with third-place Montana State (14-7, 6-3 BSC) in the loss column, and everyone is chasing Idaho State (16-5, 8-0 BSC). The Bengals emerged from the first half of the schedule without a loss. That unblemished record came from playing five of their first eight league games on the road.

And before Saturday can happen: Montana State will play at Idaho State Thursday night in Pocatello in a game that will be the start of some shifting in the standings. For current standings and this week's Poll de Force, see below.

The Bengals rallied from a 32-16 first-half deficit to win 59-58 at Bozeman in early January, setting up their 58-51 win at Missoula two days later. That gave them their first Montana road-trip sweep in more than a decade.

How you can follow the action: Saturday's game will be broadcast in the Missoula area on KPAX and statewide on the Montana Television Network with Ted Dawson, sports director of Bozeman's KBZK, on the play-by-play and Derek Buerkle, sports director of Missoula's KPAX, providing color commentary.

KENR 107.5 FM in Missoula will have coverage of both games with Tom Stage and Dick Slater. Both games will be available on Big Sky TV and both schools will offer live stats. Links to Big Sky TV and the schools' live stats are available on the women's basketball schedule page at GoGriz.com.

Three trends to be mindful of:

1. Idaho State is 9-0 since the Christmas break and has an RPI of 64, which is highly unusual for a Big Sky Conference team (next highest: Eastern Washington at 121; Montana is 191). The Bengals are pulling a Montana and only allowing 53.4 points per game in eight Big Sky Conference games on 34.4 percent shooting. One team has reached 60 points against ISU in league play: Portland State in the Bengals' 78-63 win at Pocatello.

2. Montana's trend is that the Lady Griz have no trend and are rebuffing any attempts to be pigeonholed. UM's shooting percentages the last five games: 45.5, 26.7, 46.6, 35.2 and 49.2. Recent scoring games of 77, 88 and 78 indicate this is a strong offensive team. Other games indicate Montana is a team that needs to defend well to have any chance of winning. In the last month Montana has a scoring game of 88 points and one of 42 points. It's given up 79 points and also twice held opponents to under 50 points. Good luck producing a scouting report.

3. Home courts mean nothing. Montana has won its last two games against Montana State at Worthington Arena, and the Bobcats have won the last two meetings against the Lady Griz at Dahlberg Arena. Montana won at Idaho State last February, the Bengals won at Montana in early January.

Saturday's big question: Can Montana slow down Montana State? The Bobcats are averaging nearly 70 points per game this season and have four players averaging double digits in league play. The best part of that for MSU and the toughest for opposing defenses is that of that foursome, sophomore Chelsea Banis (12.0/g) and junior Rachel Semansky (12.3/g) are post players and senior Katie Bussey (15.2/g) and sophomore Ashley Albert (10.4/g) are perimeter players. No other team in the Big Sky Conference can claim that type of inside-out balance.

"Montana State poses problems because they are so balanced offensively," UM coach Robin Selvig, who will be coaching against Montana State for the 82nd time Saturday, said. "They've got two really good post players to go along with a couple of good perimeter scorers.

Two of Montana State's three league losses this winter came against Eastern Washington. The Bobcats opened league play with a 79-73 setback at Cheney, then lost to EWU Saturday at Bozeman, 66-52. MSU shot 31.3 percent in Saturday's game and struggled through a 1-for-20 effort from 3-point range.

The team's other loss was at home to Idaho State, giving Montana State three losses to the league's current top two teams. Those losses don't do is bode well for future postseason tiebreak scenarios.

History: Montana leads the all-time series with Montana State 69-20. The teams have split their regular-season meetings three of the last four years.

The Lady Griz have gone 25-12 in games at Bozeman and have won at Worthington Arena the last three seasons. Montana rallied back from a 27-9 first-half deficit to win last season 56-55 when MSU turned the ball over in the final seconds with a chance to win.

Monday's big question: Can Montana crack Idaho State's defense, and even if it can, will that be enough to derail the Bengals' season of destiny?

First, that defense. On offense Idaho State is averaging a pedestrian 62.1 points per game in league on 37.7% shooting ... and is still unbeaten through eight games. Five of the Bengals' eight wins have come when shooting worse than 34%, and ISU won at Northern Arizona and Weber State recently while putting up second-half point totals of 19 and 17. We just double-checked, and -- yes -- those numbers are correct.

You don't do that and win unless you're getting it done on the defensive end. Idaho State is allowing its opponents to score 53.4 points per game on 34.4 percent shooting in league. Since giving up 63 points to Portland State, ISU has held Northern Arizona, Northern Colorado and Weber State to an average of 48.7 points per game.

As for destiny, back on Jan. 6, when ISU was just 2-0, we wrote that the Bengals were giving off the scent of being "that team ... which used an experienced roster and made a habit of pulling out close games on its way to a (championship finish)." Five of Idaho State's eight wins have been by seven points or fewer.

With four double-digit scorers, led by senior guard Chelsea Pickering's 12.3 average, Idaho State has enough balance and offensive diversity to overcome most situations.

"You've got to give them credit, because they've won every close game they've been in," Selvig said. "Obviously they are playing with confidence in close games.

"What really stands out is that they are winning even when they don't have a great offensive night. There have been a lot of close games throughout the league, and all of us have won some close ones and -- other than Idaho State -- all of us have lost some close ones."

Idaho State is 7-1 at home this season. The Bengals' only loss was to South Dakota, 66-54, in their final game before Christmas. That was also ISU's last loss.

History: Montana leads its series with Idaho State, 62-7, and has gone 26-5 in games at Pocatello.

In the season's first meeting in Missoula, Idaho State built a 10-point lead early in the second half and held off Montana's comeback attempts to win 58-51. ISU's Kaela Oakes led both teams with 18 points. Kenzie De Boer led the Lady Griz with 16 points. UM's other four starters combined to score just 15 points.

Idaho State will be shooting for its first regular-season sweep of Montana since the 2000-01 season and just second ever.

The big question going forward: How will these games affect Montana in the near future? Montana has an NBA-like stretch of four games in eight days. After playing at Montana State Saturday afternoon the Lady Griz will stay in Bozeman, then bus Sunday to Pocatello for Monday night's game.

The team will return to Missoula after the game, with an expected arrival of 3 a.m. Montana will take Tuesday off, then have a single practice Wednesday before hosting Sacramento State Thursday. After another single practice Friday the Lady Griz will host Northern Colorado next Saturday afternoon.

Good environments expected: Montana State (1,259/g) and Idaho State (1,046/g) rank second and third behind Montana (2,769/g) in the Big Sky in average attendance and should set new season marks when they host the Lady Griz.

The Bobcats drew a season-best 1,554 for Utah State in early December. The Bengals brought in a season-high 1,470 for Portland State. That also was a Monday game.

From the Ripley's Believe It or Not! files: Montana is ranked third in the Big Sky Conference in 3-point shooting (.341) during league play. This is the team that went 12 for 98 (.122) through the season's first five games and was 33 for 200 (.165) at the Christmas break.

The Lady Griz still rank last in the league for the entire season by a wide margin at .253.

Maiden outing: Katie Baker will be playing in her 69th career game Saturday, but it will be her first time stepping foot on Montana State's home court. Baker missed the team's final 13 regular-season games and one Big Sky tournament game as a freshman because of a knee injury. She missed just a single game last season -- Montana at Montana State -- because of appendicitis.

Essential Montana knowledge: Idaho State held Montana's leading scorer, Katie Baker, to two points in the first UM-ISU game this season. It was the lowest scoring output of Baker's career. ... If we're allowed to use "singlehandedly" in a team-sport article, Torry Hill singlehandedly won last year's game at Pocatello with three 3-pointers in the final 4:47. ... Kenzie De Boer made 24 straight free throws over a stretch of games earlier this season. That streak came to an end against Northern Arizona on Jan. 12. De Boer is back at it. Her current streak is 11, and her season percentage is at .868. ... Alyssa Smith has gone 5 for 9 from 3-point range the last two games. ... Hill has averaged 17 points the last three games, the highest sustained output of her career. She has shot 52.9 percent in those games, 56.3 percent (9 for 16) from three. She has also had 14 assists and 11 steals in those three games. ... Kellie Cole is no longer "Kellie who?" to the Big Sky's coaches. Since putting up 15, 16 and 11 points in three consecutive early league games to make a name for herself, Cole has scored 17 points total the last four games on 6-of-20 shooting.