BOISE, Idaho – Fans at Reed Gym on March 2 weren’t treated to a home-team win – the Idaho State women lost 85-72 to Sacramento State – but they did get to see something that, in this era of the Big Sky Conference, is much rarer.
Of the six players the Bengals honored on Senior Day, three – Kacey Spink, Sophia Covello and Halle Wright – had been with ISU their entire careers. Two others, although they originally transferred in, had played for the Bengals for multiple years. Spink, who joined ISU straight out of high school in 2022, and Tasia Jordan, who played three years for the Bengals after transferring from junior college, were both named all-conference.
In the Big Sky, that made ISU an anomaly. In the era of the transfer portal and NIL, it’s become increasingly difficult for mid-majors to build and keep rosters over multiple seasons. Idaho, the league champions in 2026, celebrated seven seniors, but only one who had been in Moscow for four years. Montana State, the runner-up, didn’t roster a single senior, making – at least at the top of the league – ISU’s roster a collection of tenure hardly ever seen anymore.
If the Bengals’ roster was an outlier, it was a welcome one for head coach Seton Sobolewski. Sobolewski, in his 18th season, rarely takes Division I transfers and has thrived in the past with experienced rosters built up over multiple years.
He won his first title in 2012 with a roster that included upperclassmen Chelsea Pickering, Kaela Oakes and Ashleigh Vella as the top three scorers.
His second great team, the post-COVID juggernaut that won the title in 2020-21, was similarly constructed – only three players on the roster didn’t join the Bengals out of high school. Those years of development gave them the confidence and knowledge to thrive in Sobolewski’s famously physical and demanding system.
Yet following the breakup of that great championship team, it looked like Sobolewski might never find that recipe again.
For the first time in his career, he recruited Division I transfers, adding Ivvana Murillo from San Diego State and Cam Collman from Portland, but the results lagged.
But in 2026, Sobolewski has once again hit the crest of a wave, building a roster that has uncommon experience for the Big Sky and coaching it to a top-four seed. Despite a plague of injuries, the Bengals went 19-10 and were one of only four teams to finish above .500 in Big Sky play. They’ll open the conference tournament Monday afternoon against No. 5 Sacramento State.
“We’ve got some freshmen that we were able to hang on to, and then we’ve been able to figure out how to navigate the portal better and add to that core group,” Sobolewski said. “They stuck around long enough to get experience, you know, get to a level where they knew how to compete and win.
“I don’t know if we’ve gone into a lot of games where we’ve been like, yeah, we’re by far the most talented team. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt that way about any of our games this year, but because we kind of knew how to play together, it’s helped us to win some games.”
As with any Sobolewski team, the Bengals are once again hanging around the top of the conference in defense, barely finishing second in that category behind Northern Colorado.
“Idaho State, they’re always tough,” Idaho head coach Arthur Moreira said. “They’re always very physical. They pack the paint, and Seton does a great job of kind of daring you to beat them from the 3-point line, you know?
“They rotate really well. They rebound the ball really well. They’re very, very physical. And I think he does the best job in the conference as far as scouting and taking your main actions away. You know, he’s always ready for what you’re going to do.”
Spink, who became the school’s all-time leader in steals earlier in the year, was named to the Big Sky all-defensive team for the third time in her career.
The pesky, hustling guard from Spokane, Washington, joined the Bengals in 2022, long enough ago to have played with some of the stars from ISU’s last title team, and has been the backbone as the team has grown around her.
“I have good relationships, so I stayed. I was playing,” Spink said. “I think that now the culture of basketball is different with players leaving, so for us to be able to have a core group of girls that has stayed has been really helpful.
“I’ve grown in my leadership and having to lead earlier in my career than usual, especially with some of the turnover we’ve had and some younger people coming in and like knowing how the culture is and what works.”
Jordan, a Chicago-area product who transferred to ISU after three seasons at Kirkwood Community College, is now in her third season with the Bengals. The explosive, athletic guard is averaging 15.1 points and 5.1 rebounds per game, beating defenders with dynamic drives to the rim and hanging pull-up jumpers.
“She always sees the opposing team’s best defender guarding her, and she’s just a really special talent,” Sobolewski said. “I don’t know if I’ve had a player as athletic as Tasia at Idaho State before. … You have to have one or two of those on your team, I think, to be good enough, just someone who can manufacture points on their own without using the offense. They can do something special in the right moments to keep you going, and you have to have those.”
The two all-conference players have helped the Bengals withstand a run of injuries that’s seen Covello, Collman, Jones and Aspen Caldwell all miss time.
Heading into the Big Sky Tournament, Idaho State is a decided underdog behind the top two seeds in Idaho and Montana State. But as they showed when they blew out the Bobcats 79-60 on January 22 – a result that eventually decided the Big Sky title race – Sobolewski’s latest experienced, battle-tested Bengals squad is capable of beating anyone – and possibly paying off years of perseverance and patience with a crown in Boise.
“I love coaching. I’m blessed to be a coach and to be in this profession,” Sobolewski said. “There is something special about staying with a large group for a long time. They definitely get to a point where they know how to self-regulate. They know what they have to do to get ready. They hold each other accountable. They hold themselves accountable. You know, one of the things I’ve been talking a lot about this year, especially as of late, is our team is on autopilot. They just know what they need to do, and they don’t need me to interfere a lot.
“And I think that fits me. But I think any coaches would say that, like, if you could hold on to good players for four or five years, that’s fun, you know?”
