BOISE, Idaho – As the 3-pointers continued to rip through the net for Sacramento State, Benthe Versteeg got more and more animated – jumping, skipping, nearly taking Kaylie Edge’s head off with a leaping haymaker of a fist pump after Edge buried a triple from the left wing.
It all culminated with Versteeg joyously slamming the ball down on the Idaho Central Arena floor as the buzzer sounded on the Hornets’ 73-55 win over Idaho State in the first round of the Big Sky tournament on Saturday, sending the ball halfway back up to the rafters as her teammates surrounded her.
“Everybody did their job, and every ball was falling, and that’s so nice to see,” Versteeg said. “That makes me so happy on the court, so yeah, that was very exciting.”
Just two short months ago, Sacramento State was one of the sorriest teams in the country. In head coach Aaron Kallhoff’s first year, the Hornets lost their first eight conference games – and 18 of their first 19 overall.
Sacramento State hired Kallhoff in the offseason to replace Mark Campbell, the enigmatic coach with the eccentric system who, in just two years at the helm, speedran the Hornets to the first NCAA Tournament appearance in program history before leaving for TCU.
Kallhoff, a former TCU, LSU, Penn State and BYU assistant, inherited one of the youngest rosters in the country, with just two players – Versteeg and former Illinois transfer Solape Amusan – who played over five minutes a game on last year’s Big Sky title team. Just Amusan, a senior, and little-used junior college transfer Seilala Lautaimi, a junior, are upperclassmen.
That came with growing pains – the Hornets lost at Washington 76-28 in their season opener and to Eastern Washington 60-33 in early conference play.
But starting with a 72-65 win over Portland State on February 3, Kallhoff’s young team has been improving at a prodigious rate and, as they proved on Saturday, the new-look Hornets aren’t easily giving up the crown they inherited.
“Idaho State is one of the most physical teams in the league,” Kallhoff said. “We have a young group, and I feel like as the game went on, they kind of settled in a little bit and leveled up their intensity, their effort, their toughness, and I’m proud of them for that.”
Five days after the Portland State win got the monkey off their back, the Hornets beat Idaho State 61-58, then blew out Weber State 75-44 to cap a stretch of four games – and three wins – in eight days.
On February 15, they beat Northern Arizona 82-66 in Flagstaff, perhaps the most shocking result of the entire Big Sky schedule given that the Lumberjacks finished with the second-best record in the conference and it was Sac State’s only road win all year.
Sac State then lost its final five games of the regular season – although that run included an inexplicable one-point home loss to No. 3 Montana and a four-point loss to No. 4 Montana State – before making a statement against Idaho State and the Bengals’ experienced head coach Seton Sobolewski on Saturday.
“I think their defense is getting better, I think their team chemistry is getting better, I think their leadership is getting better within the team,” Sobolewski said. “They have go-to people, and the go-to kids actually have the tools to do something with it. They definitely have evolved.”
Starting with Amusan’s 3-pointer that tied the game at 48-all with under eight minutes to go, the Hornets made seven 3s in the fourth quarter altogether, turning a close game into a laugher. Five different players hit from deep during the run.
“I think I was more able to find my teammates in the second half, and they went off,” Versteeg said.
Versteeg, the most prominent holdover from last year’s team, has embodied Sac State’s turnaround. After sitting behind Big Sky MVP Kahlaijah Dean last season, she’s played the most minutes of any player in the Big Sky Conference, and leads the league in assists. On Saturday, in complete control, the point guard from Amsterdam zipped the ball around the perimeter to shooters, finishing with 13 points and 12 assists. It was her fifth points/assists double-double of the season, and in the process she broke the Hornets’ single-season record for assists.
She’s supported by Big Sky Freshman of the Year Summah Hanson, a stretch forward from Australia, and what’s looking more and more like a reliable group of role players. Irune Orio, who played fewer than five minutes a game last season, had 19 on Saturday to lead Sac State, and Lina Falk, another international freshman from Germany, had 17.
Altogether, it looks a fair amount like the Sac State teams that Campbell built to run through the league – a high-usage point guard, a good post, surround them with shooters and figure it out from there.
And to the warning of everybody else in the league, it looks like they might be figuring it out.
“We have the youngest team in Division I, and I just want them to fight,” Kallhoff said. “Experience is valuable. It’s building confidence. … We’ve settled into what I feel like is a solid first five. They’re playing high minutes, learning to play with each other, and you saw it in that fourth quarter. They knew right where each other were at, and it was multiple people making big plays.”
