BOISE, Idaho – It didn’t take Naomi White long to introduce herself to the Big Sky Conference.
In Northern Arizona’s season opener on November 3 against New Mexico, the guard played nearly every minute for the Lumberjacks, making six 3s and scoring 24 points.
Making the stat line even more shocking was that it was not only her first game at NAU, but her first collegiate action in general following a redshirt freshman season at Grand Canyon – and it was just the first act of a staggering year for the Lumberjacks’ dynamic scoring guard.
In a blistering run, White scored more than 20 points in each of the first six games of the season, capping the skein by dropping 28 points in just 29 minutes against Arizona on November 21.
She hasn’t slowed down since. With 21 points in the regular-season finale on Monday against Montana State, White clinched the Big Sky’s scoring title at 20.7 points per game, nearly three points ahead of the runner-up (and league MVP), MSU’s Taylee Chirrick.
She also became the first freshman to lead the Big Sky in scoring since Edneisha Curry of Cal State-Northridge in 1998 and was the highest-scoring freshman in the country this season.
An exceptional three-level scorer, she led the conference in 3-pointers made and was second in free-throw attempts, scoring 20 or more points in 18 of 28 games and cresting the 30-point mark three times.
“She’s a special, special talent,” Idaho State head coach Seton Sobolewski said. “Her ability to shoot at that range off the dribble, her feel for the game, her athleticism when she turns it on.
“She’s a special talent.”
Coming after a redshirt year sitting on the bench for mid-major power Grand Canyon, it was an unexpected breakout – but not to first-year Lumberjacks head coach Laura Dinkins.
Dinkins, a former Big Sky Defensive Player of the Year at Northern Arizona, was an assistant under Molly Miller for two years at Grand Canyon, and originally recruited White, a talented high school player in Omaha, Nebraska, to the ‘Lopes.
That connection paid off last offseason, when Dinkins took over the head job at her alma mater and White later entered the transfer portal.
“Naomi is one of those kids that you always know is special,” Dinkins said. “So in the back of my mind, I always knew that if I was blessed to get an opportunity to go anywhere, Naomi White would be the perfect fit for me. The moment she hit the portal, it was zero hesitation. I got on that phone right away.
“Knowing what she brings to the table offensively, I imagined she would be one of my core pieces, and from there, just trying to build others around her. That was absolutely the game plan.”
To Dinkins, it was a bet on character, family and work ethic as much as pure basketball talent.
White’s parents both served in the military, and she was born overseas in Cambridge, England, while they were deployed.
Her mother, Melissa Royster, was the wing commander of an Air Force base.
“She’s just a leader in every way, a leader in every aspect and everything that she does,” White said. “She leads people and she helps people with things that they need help with. She’s just a great role model and a great person to look up to, especially with everything that she’s accomplished in her life.”
Her parents – both of whom also played basketball growing up – instilled in White a military discipline and work ethic, qualities that were tested during her redshirt year at Grand Canyon.
“She took it very hard,” Dinkins said about White’s redshirt year. “I don’t think anyone takes that news lightly at all. But I think what she did with that was, she channeled it differently. She turned it into making sure that she was in the gym 24/7, getting up lots of shots, working on her offensive game, but her defense as well. And her new focus just became, becoming the best scout player possible so that she could continue to get that team better, which I think showed a lot of maturity in someone so young at that time.”
That experience made Dinkins absolutely certain. In her first year as a head coach, she would hand the keys to a player who had never played a single minute of college basketball. For anyone else, it would have been a dangerous gamble. For Dinkins, who’d watched White develop from the closest possible vantage point, it was a sure thing.
“They just had so much trust in me. They had so much belief in me,” White said. “From my year at GCU, they saw my light. … That work ethic carried over here, especially because of the trust Coach Dinkins has had in me. I wanted to get here and I wanted to play immediately, like, I wanted to showcase what I can do and my ability.”
White has rewarded that trust with a historic first year for the Lumberjacks, who open Big Sky tournament play on Saturday as the No. 7 seed against No. 8 Montana.
And if history is any indication, she won’t wait long to make an impression on Big Sky in Boise.
“I would say in my 15 years of coaching basketball as an assistant, she’s got to be one of the best shot creators I’ve ever seen, one of the best play-makers,” Dinkins said. “And when it comes to making and taking tough shots, you know, she hunts for the opportunity, and she doesn’t shy away from the moment. She’s unique in that sense, where she wants the moment.
“She just gets this focused look of determination, and you can see it the moment she catches that ball. You know she’s good for it.”
White leads NAU against Montana in the No. 7 vs. No. 8 game. Montana upset Northern Arizona last year on the way to qualifying for the Big Sky Tournament championship game.
