By all accounts, last season was a banner year for the Montana State women’s basketball team.
The Bobcats won 21 games, the most under longtime head coach Tricia Binford. Montana State won 14 Big Sky Conference contests to secure the first outright league championship in school history. MSU took the No. 1 seed into the first neutral site tournament in Big Sky history in Reno.
But the overwhelming disappointments of the ending overshadowed the otherwise storybook campaign for a team led by the senior trio of smooth center Jasmine Hommes — the Big Sky MVP — feisty point guard Lindsay Stockton and athletic power forward Alexa Dawkins.
MSU screamed to 19 wins in its first 24 games, including a pair of six-game winning streaks sandwiched around a road loss at Eastern Washington. MSU sat at 12-1 in league play on Valentine’s Day. But the bleeding began the next week with a 70-66 loss to rival Montana in Missoula, the first of five losses in their final seven games for the Bobcats.
Montana State forward Peyton Ferris (2) during the 2015 BSC Tournament
Montana State swept its final home conference weekend by destroying Weber State behind a near-perfect 33-point performance by Peyton Ferris (16-of-17 from the floor). The Bobcats outlasted Idaho State for a two-point overtime win to push their conference record to 14-2.
The Bobcats would not win again. MSU suffered a road sweep at Northern Colorado and North Dakota. Action around the rest of the league still helped Montana State back into the outright title. MSU took the top seed into the conference tournament before disaster struck again.
In a bloody (literally) battle with Idaho State, Montana State found itself up by one point with seconds left on the clock. ISU seldom-used reserve Juliet Jones hit a shot from just inside the half court line at the final buzzer to lift the Bengals to a dramatic 52-50 victory. Montana State’s run at its first bid in the NCAA Tournament since 1993 was over in the blink of an eye.
MSU salvaged some sort of solace from earning the Big Sky’s automatic bid to the WNIT as the regular season champion. But the Bobcats drew a talented Utah squad who overwhelmed them with speed and size, ending MSU’s season with a 95-61 defeat in Salt Lake City, stamping a four-game losing streak to end an otherwise banner season.
“It put a sour taste in our mouth and that’s driving us,” said Ferris, the Big Sky’s Top Reserve each of the last two seasons and the preseason Big Sky MVP entering her senior year.
Montana State has done a more than adequate job replacing Stockton’s floor general skills, Hommes’ point production and Dawkins’ timely shooting 10 games into this season. The Bobcats enter their December 29 opener at Weber State with a 7-3 record. MSU won six straight non-conference games over the last month, including a 71-52 win over Cal Poly on December 20 in which the
Montana State head coach Tricia Binford coaches Hannah Caudill (23) and Peyton Ferris (2)
Bobcats rallied from a double-digit first half deficit.
“We feel hunger,” said Binford, MSU’s all-time leader in wins entering her 12th season at the helm. “We weren’t satisfied with how we finished last year. I think feeding off taking the next step and being the benchmark, having the experience and having been there, I think we are feeling even in practices, we are recognizing that we aren’t satisfied with good enough. We don’t want to be good, we want to be great and we want to be that every day.”
Hommes’ soft hands and ability to operate efficiently in both the high and low posts helped her finish her career as the fifth-leading scorer in program history with 1,448 points. During the first portion of the season, the Bobcats have continued to share the ball — MSU led the league with almost 18 assists per game last winter — but have shared the scoring load as well. Montana State has earned plenty of point production off a swarming defensive effort based on team concepts.
Five different Bobcats have led the Bobcats in scoring so far this season. Nine players are averaging at least 4.6 points per game, led by Ferris’ 16.1 on 50.4 percent shooting. MSU’s 58.4 points per game allowed and its +11.3 scoring margin both lead the Big Sky entering league play.
Ferris, a Twin Bridges native and former Montana Gatorade Player of the Year, will start for the first time as a senior despite prolific sophomore and junior years. Montana senior Kayleigh Valley was initially voted as the preseason MVP of the Big Sky but a torn ACL ended her season before it began. Ferris now has the bull’s eye on her back.
Montana State senior foward Peyton Ferris (2)
“I’m going to use Andrew Luck’s comment: pressure is a compliment,” Ferris said before the season. “You can’t let it affect your play. Nothing has happened yet. You have to take it and continue to prepare yourself during the season. There are so many players who have been good throughout the years but you have to step up.”
MSU leads the league in field goal percentage defense (34.5 percent), 3-point percentage defense (28.5), rebounding margin (+6.1) and defensive rebounds per game (30).
Senior Riley Nordgaard has been the catalyst for the spirited defensive effort. The Canby, Minnesota native spent two years at Division II Augustana before transferring to Montana State. After sitting out a year, she burst onto the scene to earn Big Sky Newcomer of the Year honors last season. The 5-foot-9, forward missed MSU’s first three games due to suspension. MSU went 1-2 with losses at Utah and at Utah State.
In seven games, Nordgaard is averaging 13 points on 43.1 percent shooting, including 40.5 from beyond the arc. She is averaging 7.3 rebounds per game, second to freshman Blaire Braxton’s 7.5 for the team lead. She is averaging 2.1 steals per outing, the fifth-best average in the league.
“We like how we are playing, how we are executing but there’s always room to get better,” Nordgaard said after scoring 17 points and setting the defensive tone during a fourth quarter in which Cal Poly missed 16 straight shots. “I think conference is a whole different ball game but we are pretty excited.”
Delany Junkermier returns for his second season as a starter after hitting 36 3-pointers and averaging 5.6 points per game as a sophomore last season. Hannah Caudill spent the last two years backing up Stockton at the point but her deft ball handling skills and elite court vision helped her lead the Big Sky with 5.4 assists per game in 24.9 minutes of action per night.
Junior guard Hannah Caudill (23)
“This gives her the opportunity to step into a leadership role at the next level,” Binford said of Caudill. “I’ve already seen her take the other point guards under her wing. There’s a great deal of composure when she’s on the floor. She finished most games for us. She led the Big Sky in assists. She makes other people on the floor better when she’s out there.”
True freshman Blaire Braxton, a late signee who originally committed to Seattle U, has stepped into MSU’s starting center role and provided a huge boost, particularly on the glass. The 6-foot-1 pivot leads the team in rebounding while also chipping in 1.5 blocks per outing.
MSU’s bench will be made up of mostly fresh faces. Senior Margreet Barhoum will see elevated minutes backing up both guard positions. Heralded freshman Oliana Squires is currently third on the team in scoring at 8.0 points per game despite early shooting struggles (34.8 percent from the floor, 32.5 percent from 3).
Annika Lai, a 6-1 wing who played good minutes last season as a true freshman, is averaging 7.1 and 4.6 rebounds in 23.1 minutes per game. True freshman center Madeline Smith has been a pleasant surprise, shooting 60 percent from the floor and chipping in 4.6 points and 3.8 rebounds in 14.4 minutes per game.
Montana State senior forward Riley Nordgaard (15) leads her teammates after a timeout
Montana State’s title defense officially begins Thursday at Weber State against a Wildcat team that won 23 games last season and advanced all the way to the CIT finals before falling in double overtime to Louisiana-Lafayette.
“We all have great friendships, we all take each other under our wings, it doesn’t matter what our age is,” Ferris said of this year’s prospects. “We have some veterans. We have some young girls. Everyone sees how bad we want it and it’s just working collectively toward a common goal: to win the Big Sky.”
Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
