Steve Smiley went through the disappointment of a first-game upset at the Big Sky Conference men’s basketball tournament last season. He was not about to do it again this year, especially as the No. 1 seed.
Although last March’s 83-76 loss to No. 8 seed Idaho State when Smiley’s Bears were the outright No. 2 seed effectively ended Saint Thomas’s career at UNC, it might’ve actually jolted Northern Colorado into the Big Sky title game this year.
Last year, one of the Big Sky’s most talented teams was left wondering what the heck happened after being a part of a massacre Sunday that also saw top-seeded Eastern Washington lose to No. 10 Sacramento State.
This year, the seeds have held — Northern Colorado will play co-Big Sky champion Montana In the league title game at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday night — and the Bears look like a team on a mission.
Since the action got started at Idaho Central Arena in downtown Boise, the Bears have looked like the best team in the tournament. UNC made quick work of No. 9 Weber State in the quarterfinals before dismantling three-time defending tournament champion Montana State in the semis.
UNC, which won its first legitimate Big Sky title in program history and its second overall during a regular-season push that saw the Bears go 15-3 in league, have gone on this unprecedented run with an emphasis on local flavor to build its roster.
“We are so connected,” said Brock Wisne, a Thornton, Colorado native, “There’s not a single guy who’s not playing with each other. All five are communicating with each other in detail. We are taking what the coaches are saying and doing it.”
Sure, Isaiah Hawthorne is one of the most talented transfers in the league, averaging 17.5 points per game after coming over from San Francisco of the West Coast Conference. The first-team all-conference selection scored 29 on Sunday and nine more on Tuesday as part of a Bears’ scoring onslaught that saw six players score between nine and 12 points.
But most of the rest of the Bears have been in Greeley for the last few years. A total of six UNC players scored at least nine points and six scored in double figures to lift UNC to its 25th win this season and ensure there’s a new Big Sky Tournament champion for the first time since 2021 when Eastern Washington advance to the NCAA Tournament.
Northern Colorado has made runs in the tournament before. But this team is different than any before it. UNC captured its second Big Sky title since 2011 and the first that counts as being “official” because of NCAA violations. So many Bears teams of the past have been built around sheer star power.
Northern Colorado senior Andre Spight
Andre Speight, Jordan Davis and Jonah Radebaugh helped lead the Bears to the CIT tournament championship in 2017-2018, marking the only postseason tournament win by a Big Sky Conference team.
Davis finished his career as the Big Sky’s second all-time leading scorer and he was the MVP of the conference the year after helping pace the CIT run. Radebaugh was a do-everything who transformed from walk-on to Big Sky Defensive Player of the Year to one of the most high-usage players in college basketball.
That group gave way to a group led by Bodie Hume, a four-year starter who saw his role evolve multiple times throughout his career. Players like Dalton Knecht, Daylen Kountz, Matt Johnson and Saint Thomas gave the Bears the feel of a real deal mid-major power. But the post-season proved to be a bugaboo more often than not.
A year after the CIT run, the Bears lost to Southern Utah in the second round of the Big Sky tournament as the second seed. The following off-season, former head coach Jeff Linder left for Wyoming.
In Smiley’s second season as the head coach for UNC, Hume and company advanced to the Big Sky title game before losing to Montana State in the first of what would become three straight runs to the tournament title for the Bobcats.
The following season, UNC’s season ended in the quarterfinals with another loss to Montana State. And last season, as the No. 2 seed, Northern Colorado was part of a busted bracket all the way around. Eighth-seeded Idaho State knocked out the Bears shortly after No. 10 Sac State became the first last-place team to ever beat the No. 1 seed as the Hornets knocked out Eastern Washington, marking the second season in a row the Eagles had captured the regular season title and went one-and-done at the tournament.
That motivated Northern Colorado.
“All year long, we have tried to keep our edge,” Wisne said.
Because of Northern Colorado’s consistent winning this season, players like aggressive, powerful guard Langston Reynolds have become stars within the Big Sky ecosystem. But this Bears team is built on balance and chemistry, a few factors honed from the fact that UNC returned pretty much its whole roster from a year ago other than Thomas, who transferred to USC last off-season.
“The coolest part about this is we are up on this podium for the second time and the last time we were here, it was Jaron (Rillie) and it was Zay (Hawthorne) and tonight, it’s Brock (Wisne) and Langston (Reynolds),” Smiley said following his team’s 72-45 win over Montana State. “I could be any of our guys. It’s been our mantra and our theme all year that this team is a team. This team is not just a couple of talented guys.
“We are really seeing the fruits of guys buying into their roles and our depth.”
Northern Colorado’s balance and ball movement has led to the best field goal shooting offense in the country. The Bears shot 50 percent on Tuesday night and are shooting 50.9 percent this season.
“Our recent play, it started before we even got here,” Reynolds, a first-team All-Big Sky selection, said. “We had really good practices. We were tuned into the details and control the things we can control.
“We have our minds right, we are confident.”
Last season when the Bears were upset in their first Big Sky Tournament game, Smiley wanted to take the team to a post-season tournament. When Thomas made it clear he was leaving, that opened up an opportunity for Reynolds and several other Bears players to blossom.
Northern Colorado head coach Steve Smiley/ by Brooks Nuanez
Although the Bears suffered a narrow 51-49 loss to Cleveland State, Smiley saw a potential future. Reynolds scored 14 points and ripped down eight rebounds in elevated minutes.
The return of point guard Jaron Rillie, a talented Australian who’s one of the smoothest players in the conference, gave Smiley a steadying hand. The return of Wisne gave Smiley a 6-foot-9, 250-pound brick in the middle. The return of Zach Bloch gave Smiley a defensive stopper. And the addition of Hawthorne gave the Bears another efficient three-level scorer.
One of the most interesting parts of the Bears roster is that a good portion of Smiley’s rotation are in-state products. Reynolds is from Denver. Wisne is from Thornton. Bloch is originally from Lawrence, Kansas but went to Colorado Prep in Denver. Reserve guard Taeshaud Jackson came to UNC as a transfer from VMI, but he’s also from Denver.
“I think when you have local players, in state players, it at least gives you a better chance to retain them, because they’re at home,” Smiley said. “You could develop players from anywhere, and we have freshmen and young guys from all over the world on our roster.
“When you have guys like Langston and Brock, their families are here every game and they can go home on the weekend if they need to. Most young guys, it takes time and if they are struggling as young guys and they have the right family, the right support network around them at the games, I think it can really help.”
The cultivated chemistry from that core of returners plus the addition of Hawthorne, who shot 49.7 percent from the floor and 40.1 percent from beyond the arc while leading the Bears at 17.5 points per game this season, helped UNC start 6-0 in league play and win nine of its first 10.
The lone loss during the first half of the conference slate came on a buzzer-beater at Idaho and also came with Hawthorne out with an illness.
The most eye-opening victory came when Northern Colorado smashed Montana in Missoula. The Bears have been great playing at Dahlberg Arena and have won five times in their last six trips to the Garden City. But no team has ever beaten a Travis DeCuire Griz team like UNC did on January 11 when the Bears rolled to an 81-57 win.
The Griz turned a major corner after that game, however, forging a 10-game winning streak that included beating UNC 86-78 in Greeley on February 6. That win helped Montana overtake UNC for first place in the standings, where the Griz stayed until the final weekend of the year.
But Montana stumbled in Portland, losing in overtime to Portland State. And UNC won its final four games, including a 68-63 win at Weber State to sew up the first “official” Big Sky regular-season title in school history and secure the No. 1 seed.
“The thing that gets over emphasized in a season is the race itself. Until the smoke settles, it doesn’t really matter what place you are in until the race is done,” Montana State second-year head coach Matt Logie said. “They continued to play good basketball and when the dust settled, they were the No. 1 seed. That’s staying the course.”
Now UNC has a chance to go to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2011 and the second time in school history. The only thing standing in the Bears’ way is the Montana Grizzlies. UM destroyed Idaho 78-55 to advance to the Big Sky title game for the sixth time in DeCuire’s 11 seasons at the helm.
The Griz are looking for their 13th trip to the NCAA Tournament, including their third under DeCuire and their first as a program since 2019. Northern Colorado is looking for their first rip to the Big Dance in 14 seasons and the second in the history of the school.
“Our goal is not to get into the championship game, it’s to win it,” Reynolds said. “Getting there is amazing, it’s great for the history, but it doesn’t mean anything if we don’t win it.”
