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The
600 club: Lady Griz coach
reaches victory milestone
He’s
joined an elite club.
Robin Selvig, coach of UM’s Lady Griz basketball team, has reached
600 career wins faster than all but five coaches in NCAA Division
I history.
He reached the milestone March 6 during a dominant 85-50 thumping
of Portland State before 5,305 fans at UM’s Dahlberg Arena.
The victory was sweetened by the fact the Lady Griz completed a perfect
14-0 Big Sky Conference schedule.
The 26-year veteran of UM athletics finished the regular season with
a record of 600-172. There are just 12 active Division I women’s
basketball coaches to reach 600 career wins. Among active men’s
Division I basketball coaches, only 10 have so many victories. In
all NCAA history, Selvig becomes one of only 57 coaches to reach the
600 plateau.
He reached the mark in 772 games. The coach who reached the 600 fastest
was Adolph Rupp of Kentucky, who did it in 704 games.
An Outlook native, Selvig was a four-year member of the Grizzly basketball
team, earning second team All-Big Sky honors as a senior.
Selvig graduated from UM in the spring of 1974 with a degree in health
and physical education. He was inducted into the Grizzly Basketball
Hall of Fame in February 1983.
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 School, where he totaled a 38-24 record in three seasons.
Selvig was hired as UM’s fourth women’s basketball coach
on June 6, 1978, taking over a team that went 7-13 the previous season.
Selvig’s first Lady Griz team finished 13-13 and in second place
in the NWBL Mountain Division.
Montana’s modest improvement to .500 in Selvig’s first
year bloomed 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, winning
the program’s first league title. Those years started a string
of 19 consecutive winning seasons and 18 straight 20-win seasons.
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, 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 national tournament,
losing 72-53 at Louisiana-Monroe. In 1983-84 the Lady Griz achieved
a breakthrough by winning their first-ever NCAA tournament game, a
56-47 home-court victory over Oregon State.
Starting with the 1987-88 team, 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, they
won the first three Big Sky Conference titles with perfect 16-0 marks
and have since won 10 more conference titles.
In 2000 the Lady Griz won the league title with a 13-3 mark. They
proceeded to win the postseason championship, and then made their
most recent trip to the NCAA tournament, a 74-46 loss at Georgia.
In February 2001 Selvig was inducted into the Grizzly Sports Hall
of Fame.
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