Editor’s Note: This year of 2024 marks the 10th anniversary of Skyline Sports. In celebration, Colter & Brooks Nuanez along with Andrew Houghton will compile a variety of Top 10 lists of players, teams, coaches and moments from the last decade throughout the Big Sky Conference.
This installment ranks the top 10 women’s basketball players in the Big Sky Conference. Heavy credit was given to winning players who helped their teams advance to the NCAA Tournament and to players who were standouts for four years at one school, although a few transfers land on the list.
10. Regan Schenck, Northern Arizona
D’Shara Strange, Northern Colorado
Delaney Hodgins, Eastern Washington
It’s a total cop out….but we had to fit three players into our Top 10 for the price of one.
Schenck helped redefine a program, playing more games than any player in league history (besides Idaho’s Estefania Ors) and finished third in league history in career assists with 703. She helped guide a previously moribund NAU program to the league title game two years in a row and helped the Lumberjacks hang their first Big Sky banner since 1998 and just the second in school history. On the court, she was a direct extension of head coach Loree Payne, a former All-Pac 10 point guard at Washington. Schenck’s ability to play with an insane motor and ignite NAU’s breathtaking transition offense helped the ‘Jacks win 20+ games two years running after only surpassing 20 wins three times in program history to that point.
Strange is one of the best players the Big Sky has seen this century. Her 1,891 career points ranked sixth in league history and were the most in Northern Colorado history when she completed her eligibility and that total still ranks 11th in the Big Sky record book. She is one of six players in BSC history with more than 1,000 rebounds (1,039), and is the all-time leader in steals with 346. Strange was a four-time All-Big Sky selection, a three-time first-team pick and shared the league MVP with Montana’s Kellie Cole her senior year in 2015. If UNC hadn’t blown a big lead against Montana in the Big Sky Tournament championship game that year, Strange might’ve been in the Top 5.
Hodgins has one of the best resumes in league history, period. Search her name in the Big Sky record book and it comes up 39 times. She is one of 43 players in league history to earn All-Big Sky honors three times. She was the Freshman of the Year, then second-team all-conference, then first-team All-Big Sky twice. Her 46 points against Northern Arizona in March of 2018 is the most in a single game in conference history and might be the most untouchable total in the league’s record book – nobody else has more than 41.
She’s in the top 10 in league history in games played (129), blocked shots (seventh, 188), field goals made (fourth, 784) and career scoring (fourth, 2,120). Her EWU teams had winning records all four years, including 20-win seasons in 2015 and 2016 (and WNIT appearances to boot), but the Eagles never won the conference or advanced to the Big Dance.
9. Taylor Pierce, Idaho
If the No. 1 factor for qualification for this list is being must-see TV (or a must-buy ticket to see in person), Pierce is arguably the top player in the Skyline era. When she got hot from beyond the arc, Big Sky nerds would send texts ping-ponging around the conference, reminiscent of when Steph Curry would have a heat check for the Golden State Warriors.
Former Idaho head coach Jon Newlee was always brash in his notion that “shooters shoot” and he empowered Pierce – along with fellow sniper Mikayla Ferenz (more on her later) — to shoot with as much as prevalence and as prolifically as any sharpshooting duo in the history of college basketball.
Pierce and Ferenz were dubbed the “Splash Sisters” in homage to Curry and fellow Dubs sniper Klay Thompson. On the surface, it seems like a stretch. But when you realize that Pierce made more 3-pointers than any player in the history of college basketball during her time on the Palouse, it doesn’t seem like such a reach.
Pierce nailed a league record nine 3-pointers in a game…five different times in her career. She hit a league-record 93 triples during her sophomore year…then blew that mark out of the water by hitting 137 3-pointers as a junior…and then annihilated that record by banging 154 shots from deep as a senior, which not only stands as the Big Sky record but also set the NCAA record.
The mark has since been broken – transcendent Iowa star Caitlin Clark hit 201 3-pointers as a senior and a mind-boggling 548 3s in her peerless career — but when the dust settled on Pierce’s career, her 472 treys were the most in college hoops history and her 1,935 career points ranked 10th ever.
For a two-year span, Pierce averaged 4.4 3-point makes a game, a record that will stand for as long as any in BSC women’s hoops history.
She has the quickest release of any player we have ever covered and her shooter’s mentality is unmatched. She could pour in triples like no Big Sky player before her or since and although her time in the Big Sky came to a heartbreaking end (see below), she left a mark as one of the most memorable, entertaining athletes of the Skyline Sports era
8. Kahlaijah Dean, Sacramento State
Certainly the greatest one-hit wonder of the Skyline era and perhaps the best one-year transfer in the history of the Big Sky Conference in any sport, Dean came into the Sacramento State program from Oakland and instantly made history.
Her efficiency within former head coach Mark Campbell’s high-usage system was astounding. Her grit, determination and killer instinct helped lift the Hornets to their greatest season in school history and the lone trip to the NCAA Tournament ever by Sac State women’s basketball.
Dean does not have an elongated legacy. She only played 34 games at Sac and only 21 against Big Sky competition. But her impact is undeniable. In that one year, she averaged 20.8 points and 5.1 assists per game. More impressively, given she had the ball in her hands on almost every possession, was her efficiency, as she shot percentages of 44/38/82 and had an assist/turnover ratio solidly over one.
The Campbell experience at Sac State was a whirlwind. After being a finalist at Montana before shifting gears swiftly and nabbing the Sac job in what seemed like the blink of an eye, his departure from the Big Sky scene was just as sudden. In two years, he recruited back-to-back league MVPs – Liana Tillman was his high-usage, high-scoring grad transfer the year before Dean — and paired them with imposing 6-foot-5 post Isnelle Natabou.
Dean was the player that unlocked it all for the Hornets, helping guide Sac to a 25-8 record. The Hornets cruised through the Big Sky tournament, beating Idaho, Portland State and Northern Arizona by an average of nearly 19 points. After a 67-45 loss to UCLA in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, the entire team disbanded. Dean graduated, Campbell took the head job at TCU, Natabou transferred to Iowa State and most of the rest of the Hornets pivoted to different playing opportunities.
Sac went 6-25 last season, which might be the greatest example of just how good Dean was during her one season in the Big Sky.
7. Jasmine Hommes, Montana State
Hommes had as much legacy pressure coming into MSU as any player in the Skyline era or otherwise. And she carved out a legacy all her own.
Her aunts, Brooke and Blythe Hommes, were standouts for the Bobcats in the mid-1990s. If not for a 25-foot buzzer-beater by Juliet Jones in the first neutral-site Big Sky Tournament game ever, Jasmine might have led MSU back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in a generation during her senior season.
Jasmine Hommes was the best front-court player in the Big Sky during her junior and senior seasons, earning MVP her final year with the Bobcats. She helped MSU hang its first regular-season banner since 1993 and just the second in program history to that point while averaging nearly 16 points per game for the second season in a row. Hommes finished her career with 1,448 points, the sixth-most in MSU history.
More than any statistical accomplishment though, Hommes is ranked highly because of her poise, her unwavering composure and the steady, almost icy way she carried herself on the court. She is one of the smoothest offensive players, and perhaps THE smoothest offensive big, of the current century in the Big Sky. Her finesse, shooting touch and metronome-like consistency were second to none in the Skyline Sports era.
She was the first Bobcat to earn MVP honors under head coach Tricia Binford (then in her 13th season, now entering Year 20) and her solo press conference following Jones’ shot – which brought her MSU career to a shocking end – stands alone as one of the most memorable in the history of Skyline Sports.
6. Beyonce Bea, Idaho
Only three players in league history have dropped 40 points in a single game on two separate occasions. Bea is one of them.
She was the league’s scoring champ as a senior. The 6-foot-1 forward from Washougal, Washington, was a four-time All-Big Sky selection including third-team as a freshman and then three years in a row on the first team. She finished her career with 1,938 points, the eighth-most in league history, and her 886 rebounds rank 11th.
And although the Vandals went from a Big Sky finalist in 2020 before the Big Sky and NCAA Tournaments got called off to a 17-win squad the next year to below .500 in both Bea’s junior and senior seasons, it’s undeniable to anyone that watched her that she belongs on this list.
Simply put, Beyonce Bea was the definition of a bucket and the best individual basketball player on the court in basically every single Big Sky game she played in for four straight years.
During her 40-point games, she didn’t pour in free throws or hit a crazy number of 3s. She diligently drained two-point shots over and over again. Her 17 made field goals against Montana in February of 2023 are the league record and she is believed to be the only opposing Big Sky player to drop 40 in Missoula. In her 40-point game against Portland State the previous season, she poured in 16 made field goals.
5. Jamie Loera, Eastern Washington
Loera has a smaller body of work than most of the rest of this list. She transferred to EWU from Arizona State ahead of the 2022-23 season and made an immediate impact, earning third-team All-Big Sky honors and Defensive Player of the Year.
Her senior season, though, is one of the great walk-offs in league history. Because of her steadying hand, infectious charisma and elite ability to be a late-game maestro, Eastern smashed its previous school record for wins in a season (21) with 29 victories last year, the most by a Big Sky team during the Skyline era.
Down the stretch of the regular season, Loera orchestrated a one-point win in Missoula that set up EWU with a chance to clinch its first league title since 2010 against Montana State.
In that game, Loera’s runner in the lane that kissed off the glass at the final buzzer perfectly summed up why she’s one of the great single-season sensations we’ve covered. That buzzer-beater gave EWU a 52-50 victory and clinched the outright league championship in the process. It also clinched the Big Sky MVP for Loera.
By the time the Eagles advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1987, Loera had earned the rare trifecta of Big Sky MVP, Defensive Player of the Year and Big Sky Tournament MVP in the same season.
She’s the best and most important player on the greatest team in EWU history. That lands you in the Top 5 of this list.
4. Darian White, Montana State
If Bea was clearly the top talent on the floor at almost all times during her career, White was clearly and startlingly the biggest tempo dictator of the Skyline era and perhaps the most impactful game changer on this list.
Like Chris Paul has so masterfully done over his 20-year Hall of Fame NBA career, White impacted the pace and tenor of nearly every part of the game. Offensively, she is the best paint penetrating guard we’ve ever covered. Her ability to ignite transition, steadily manage extended fast breaks, beat her defender off the dribble and find open shooters with a seemingly endless array of passes is what made her a three-time first-team all-league pick and one of the most decorated Bobcats in school history. She and Cass Bauer are the only 3-time first-team All-Big Sky selections ever for the Bobcats.
And to think, all those offensive accolades — White’s 1,716 points and her 449 assists are both second in school history — pale in comparison to how she changed the game on defense. Sure, some would say she took an unrivaled number of gambles going for steals and pressuring opposing point guards.
But when White cranked up the defensive intensity and shadowed her fellow ball handler for 94 feet, it was a sight to behold. She was the single best man-to-man, full-court press player we’ve ever seen and she impacted winning more than just about every player that’s come through Montana State during the Tricia Binford era.
If you need proof, look no further than MSU’s 84-37 record with her as their point guard. She helped guide MSU to a program-record 25 wins while earning Freshman of the Year in 2019-20, then guided the Bobcats back to the NCAA Tournament as a junior, winning Tournament MVP in the process in her home city of Boise.
MSU won at least 22 games in three of White’s four years and went 17-7 in the other, which was shortened by COVID. She is the only player in Big Sky Conference history with at least 1,700 points, 600 rebounds, 475 assists and 250 steals.
She’s the greatest point guard Binford has ever coached and she is one of the best two-way point guards the league has ever seen.
3. Mikayla Ferenz, Idaho
Ferenz resoundingly announced her presence in the Big Sky by shooting her way to Big Sky Tournament MVP honors as a true freshman as Idaho won the first-ever BSC postseason on a neutral court in Reno.
That was only the beginning. When it was all said and done, Ferenz annihilated the all-time BSC scoring mark, which had been held by Idaho State’s Natalie Doma for more than a decade. When you can say you scored hundreds more points than Doma or Montana legend Shannon Cate, you know you poured the ball in the basket for four years.
The sharpshooting 5-foot-11 wing nailed 415 3-pointers over her UI career, which would be the league record by nearly 50 if it wasn’t for fellow “Splash Sister” Taylor Pierce (see above). But Ferenz also had a full arsenal of ways to score. And the daughter of high school coaches from Walla Walla, Washington, certainly used them all on the way to winning three straight Big Sky scoring titles.
Ferenz shot more than 1,000 3-pointers in her career yet still shot nearly 39 percent from beyond the arc and 45 percent from the floor overall. She made 321 of her 375 free throw attempts (86 percent) and averaged nearly 19 points per game for her career.
She was the Big Sky Conference MVP as a senior and was a part of 71 Idaho victories during her career. Despite making just one NCAA Tournament, the Vandals played in a postseason tournament all four years Ferenz was on the squad.
When UI lost a gut-wrencher to Portland State in the semifinals of the 2018-19 tournament, the Vandals managed to bounce back, winning at Loyola Marymount in the first round of the WNIT and following it up three days later with an 88-66 drubbing of Denver in Moscow. The Vandals then showed well in a 68-60 loss at Arizona, capping one of the better post-BSC tourney runs of the Skyline era.
Ferenz defined skill and nearly flawless fundamentals. She is as sound a basketball player as the league has ever seen and she had a great sense for the moment. If Idaho doesn’t go ice cold against Portland State in that 2019 tournament (6-of-29 from beyond the arc), Ferenz and Pierce would have had a shot to get back to the NCAA Tournament as seniors.
Even without a second trip to the Big Dance, Ferenz’s immense resume, winning ways and elite offensive prowess land her in the Top 3.
2. Savannah Smith, Northern Colorado
Smith might be the best player in Northern Colorado history and was the best player on Northern Colorado’s best team, a squad we ranked as the No. 1 Big Sky women’s basketball team of the Skyline era.
We could end this entry there, but what’s the fun in that?
After a humble freshman season, Smith transformed into the best combo guard in the Big Sky. And she held that title for three straight seasons, earning unanimous first-team All-Big Sky honors three years in a row. The 5-foot-6 Fort Collins, Colorado native became the sixth player in Big Sky history to score more than 2,000 points and her 2,013 career points is a Northern Colorado record.
As a sophomore, the precocious, savvy and sharply competitive mighty mite averaged 16 points per game to rank fourth in the Big Sky. As a junior, she averaged nearly 19 points per game and won league MVP honors while also setting the Big Sky Tournament record for points in a postseason, pouring in 78 points to lead UNC to three straight wins.
Smith went off for 34 points in a dominant coronation in the Big Sky title game as UNC blasted Idaho 91-69 to move to 26-6. That win helped the Bears earn a No. 10 seed in the NCAA Tournament, the highest seed by a Big Sky champion since Montana took a No. 9 seed in the 1997 tournament.
That win also helped vault UNC head coach Kami Ethridge into the Power 5. Ethridge is now in her sixth season as the head coach at Washington State and the Cougs have made three NCAA Tournaments in the last four years.
Ethridge’s departure could have derailed Smith and Northern Colorado. Instead, Smith went out, averaged 23 points per game as a senior and led the Bears to 22 wins to help her stamp her 2018 Colorado Sportswoman of the Year award.
Smith, like Schenck at NAU and White at Montana State, was a direct reflection and extension of her head coach as a sophomore and a junior. Ethridge herself was a 5-foot-5 point guard who played for Hall of Fame coach Jody Conradt at the University of Texas before helping guide the United States to the 1988 Olympic Gold Medal in Seoul, Korea.
Smith’s points per game total ranked seventh nationally and helped earn her a third straight unanimous first-team All-BSC selection. The only reason she didn’t repeat as MVP is because of Ferenz’s senior year.
The 2019 Big Sky Tournament was supposed to be a collision course between Ferenz’s Vandals, the No. 1 seed, and Smith’s Bears, the second seed. UNC swept UI during the regular season but Idaho’s 16-4 record earned the top spot.
But, in certainly the most unlikely, and perhaps one of the most heartbreaking days in league tournament history, both Idaho and Northern Colorado got bounced in stunning fashion in the semifinals in the matter of hours.
Ferenz and Pierce combined to go 3-of-21 from beyond the arc and Idaho shot 6-of-29 from deep as a team against Portland State’s vaunted zone (spearheaded by Ashley Bolston, which was one of the big arguments to get her on this list – more on her later). That led to a 75-59 PSU win and an abrupt end to the “Splash Sisters”, at least in the Big Sky.
Right afterward, Smith and Northern Colorado played a spunky, youthful Eastern Washington team that finished sixth in the regular season but had already won two games at the tournament.
Australian freshman Jessica McDowell-White bounced an in-bounds pass off of Smith’s back, then corralled the wayward ball and turned it into a 3-point play that helped EWU earn one of the most improbable wins in league tournament history, 59-57.
Despite the completely non-fairy tale ending to her career, Smith was one of the most consistently fun athletes to watch, in any sport, of the Skyline era.
Smith gets the edge at No. 2 over Ferenz because of UNC’s phenomenal run during Smith’s junior season and because of her ability to take her game up another notch under a first-year, first-time head coach as a senior.
1. Peyton Ferris, Montana State
White and Hommes were both better four-year players at Montana State, as was Schenck at Northern Arizona, Bea and Ferenz at Idaho and Hodgins at EWU. All the aforementioned have gaudier career numbers, with statistical cases to be ranked higher than Ferris.
But the Twin Bridges, Montana native is the single best big-game player of the Skyline Sports era. And when it comes to reaching up and grabbing the brass ring, nobody did it better than one of the great Class C athletes in the history of the Treasure State, or over the last decade in Big Sky women’s hoops.
And nobody had a better crescendo to the end of a career than the former small-town superstar.
Ferris first landed on Montana hoops aficionados’ radar as a high school senior at Twin Bridges High (population: 330). She had a postseason run to remember — symbolic of things to come — helping the Falcons race all the way to the state title game. Even though TB lost 59-56 to the burgeoning Belt dynasty (the Huskies won five of the next six and six of the next nine Class C titles), Ferris did her best… and better than almost any other individual performance in Montana prep title game history as she poured in 41 points.
Ferris started her college career as a Class C prospect transitioning to Division I without a position to play and still trying to recover from an ailing knee that affected her so badly, she had to sit out her second year at MSU.
In 2017, Skyline Sports wrote:
“Early on in her career, the Twin Bridges native was a 5-foot-9 athlete without a position, floating through the struggles of adjusting from Class C to the Big Sky Conference. Ferris battled physical injuries — her surgically repaired ACL ailed her so much, she was forced to redshirt during her second season in Bozeman — and the mental demons of doubt that accompanied going from the Montana Gatorade Player of the Year as a prep senior to shooting 30 percent her first college season.
“During that year away, Ferris switched positions, moving from guard to power forward. She learned under Rachel Semansky, an All-Big Sky performer from Class C Highwood who shares similar characteristics to Ferris: tough, hard-working and grounded. And during the year off, Ferris learned how to take care of her body, from communicating with coaches to mitigate practice time to maximizing the training resources provided by MSU to learning how to stay healthy despite hitting the floor while hustling as much as any player in college hoops.”
That transition helped Ferris first earn Big Sky Top Reserve honors two years in a row while playing on a ‘minute count.’
When Ferris was a junior, Montana State won its first Big Sky regular-season title in a generation, only to see NCAA Tournament dreams evaporate on a buzzer-beater by Idaho State.
The following season, Ferris and her teammates came back with a vengeance. Ferris had 18 points and 10 rebounds in a narrow 74-64 loss at Utah in the first game of the season. MSU stumbled to a 1-4 start in non-conference before ripping off seven straight wins.
After the feature story quoted above was printed, Ferris went out and had 18 points and 10 rebounds against Montana. Then she had 22 and 12 against Idaho State. Then she had 22 and 11 against Weber State as Montana State earned the No. 1 seed in the Big Sky Tournament.
Ferris had 16 and 11 against Eastern Washington in the Big Sky semis and 23 points to go with nine rebounds as MSU outlasted Idaho State in the title game to earn a measure of revenge – and its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1993.
By the time the NCAA Tourney Selection Show rolled around, Ferris was the Big Sky MVP, the Big Sky Tournament MVP and was authoring one of the great single seasons of any athlete in the Skyline era.
And that was all before the crescendo. MSU got an impossible draw in the NCAA Tournament, receiving a 14 seed and getting sent to Hec-Edmundson Pavilion to take on the No. 8-ranked and third-seeded Washington Huskies, a powerhouse led by Kelsey Plum, the all-time leading scorer in NCAA women’s basketball history before Caitlin Clark came along.
And while UW hung 91 on the Bobcats, the small-town girl from Madison County hung 33 on the Huskies. Her performance is the single best in the Big Dance by a Big Sky Conference women’s hooper and thrusts her past several other BSC legends into the top spot in our countdown.
