The Big Sky Conference reached its midpoint of the basketball schedule for the women’s and men’s hoops leagues over the weekend.
This is the standard time for us to crank out some mid-season All-Big Sky lists and mid-season awards. But that sounds like a much better podcast.
So instead, how about the players who have given their respective teams the most juice? To say the “most impactful” would be unfair and also naïve to how many players make an impact on a given basketball game.
But which Big Sky players, women and men, have been difference makers for their teams because of the energy they bring? What players have given their club a jolt by doing the dirty work? Who has provided an intangible level of toughness that’s helped put their squads in position?
On the men’s side, Northern Colorado tore through the first half with a 9-1 mark. The lone loss came on a buzzer-beater at Idaho with UNC’s leading scorer Isaiah Hawthorne out with an illness.
Montana has had a few head-scratching losses during an otherwise strong season despite graduating six seniors off last year’s 24-win team. Northern Colorado ripped Montana 81-57 in Missoula. A week later, the Griz scored 13 points in the second half of an 86-61 loss at Idaho State.
That seemed to be a wake-up call. The Grizzlies have won four in a row to sit a game one behind UNC with Thursday’s rematch in Greeley looming. Those two teams are at least two games clear of everyone else and look like the clear front-runners.
Here’s a look at the men who’ve provided a spark for their respective teams.
Joe Pridgen, Montana
Honestly, we came up with this list as a way to highlight Pridgen and the impact he’s made with the Griz so far this year.
The old cliché is “this guy does so much that goes beyond the stat sheet.” And even if it’s a cliché, it’s absolutely true about the well-traveled graduate transfer.
Pridgen impacts a game with his relentless energy and his ability to intimidate.
“I was just saying this in the locker room, but I am glad I’m on the same team as Joe because I would not want to play against him,” UM senior guard Kai Johnson said after Montana’s 87-59 win over Sac State. “He strikes fear into the hearts of his opponents.”
Pridgen is atypical for several reasons. He’s a 6-foot-4 power forward who pretty much exclusively impacts a game with his effort. He hardly ever shoots shots that aren’t at the rim. He crashes the glass with reckless abandon and he runs the floor powerfully, threatening to change the momentum of any game with a SportsCenter-worthy dunk.
He’s also unorthodox because he hails from Boston, but claims to be a Los Angeles Lakers fan. And Montana is his fourth school, after making stops at Holy Cross, UNC-Wilmington and Northeastern before landing in Missoula.
Pridgen is averaging 12.1 points and nearly eight rebounds a game, but it’s the edge he’s brought to the Grizzlies that has been his main impact so far.
Langston Reynolds, Northern Colorado
Simply put, Reynolds is the best two-way player in the conference. He’s a fearless perimeter defender who also is as aggressive getting to the rim as any player in the Big Sky Conference.
He’s also a testament to investing in a player and allowing him to develop, something that seems like a lost art in college men’s basketball in 2025. Reynolds started three games before this year and played about 18 minutes a game last season. This season, he’s exploded into a real deal Big Sky MVP candidate with one of the most eye-catching stat lines in the league.
He leads the conference in shooting percentage at 62.3 percent, which is made even more impressive when one considers he’s only 12-of-32 from beyond the arc (37.5 percent). He’s averaging 17.5 points and 6.1 rebounds per game, making him the only player in the conference who ranks in the top six in both categories.
Beyond any statistic though, Reynolds sets the tone for Northern Colorado from an energy and toughness perspective. He’s risen to his highest heights in UNC’s biggest games — like a 17-point, 15-rebound grown-man performance in the Bears’ 81-57 win at Montana or his 19-point, 12-rebound statement in Monday’s 86-72 win at Idaho State — and will have to continue doing so if the Bears are going to capitalize on their 9-1 Big Sky start, beginning Thursday with a rematch with the Grizzlies in Greeley.
Carson Towt, Northern Arizona
You might need a master’s degree to explain why Carson Towt is still only listed as a redshirt junior even though he’s been on Northern Arizona’s roster for six seasons. But you don’t need any sort of degree to see how that extended career, which has been riddled with injuries, has also allowed Towt to build up his body and maximize his physical maturity.
Towt has always been a high-energy, physical, banging power forward who likes to clear space with his body and sometimes his elbows. To watch him play is to watch a player who almost seems to take pride in never dribbling, yet making an unbelievable impact on a basketball game.
For years, observers would point out Towt’s toughness, his aggressiveness and his willingness to do the dirty work for Northern Arizona. This year, he’s in a completely different stratosphere in his desire to prove he’s one of the best rebounders in all of college basketball.
He enters this weekend with Montana State coming to Flagstaff Thursday and the Griz coming on Saturday averaging 12.8 rebounds per game, far and away the top number in the Big Sky. He currently has more rebounds than all but two players in the entire country.
Towt had 16 points and 19 rebounds against Northern Colorado on Saturday. He has double-digit rebounds in every single Big Sky game, save one, with another 19 against Portland State, 18 against Idaho, 17 against Montana State….you get the point. The dude is cleaning the glass like nobody in the Big Sky since Joel Bolomboy for Weber State almost a decade ago.
Qiant Myers, Portland State
Myers has been so steady, and sometimes so spectacular, in his first Division I season, it’s actually challenging to imagine him playing Division II hoops in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.
The former Western Oregon star is one of the best facilitating point guards the Big Sky has seen in recent years and his smooth style is a perfect fit for Portland State’s run-and-gun identity. He has six games this season with more than 11 assists and his 6.6 dimes per game lead the conference.
He’s the rare modern player who doesn’t need to score to completely control a game, like he did when he dished out 11 assists and scored just one point in a narrow loss to Denver U.
When called upon, though, the silky dribble-drive player can get in the lane and score with the best of them. He had 19 points and seven assists against Northern Colorado, and scored 28 points last weekend in a loss at Montana.
Portland State had won nine of 11 games before getting swept on the Treasure State swing last weekend. The Vikings still remain in the mix for a first-round bye at the Big Sky Tournament (5-4 at the turn) and Myers is a big reason for that.
Dylan Darling, Idaho State
It’s probably disingenuous to include the former Washington State transfer on this list because he’s straight up been a first-team All-Big Sky caliber performer during the first half. But his flashy style and unquestionable confidence have been enormous keys for the new-look Bengals.
Isaiah Griffin is the only returning starter from an Idaho State squad that won 14 games last season but notched two victories in the Big Sky Tournament, including jolting past No. 2 Northern Colorado 83-76 in the quarterfinals. The ISU starting lineup includes Jake O’Neil, a transfer from NAIA College of Idaho, along with Conner Hollenbeck, a transfer from Division II Minot State. Center Evan Otten was with the program last season, but redshirted.
Almost all the production of any of the aforementioned has a direct tie to the swagger and explosiveness of the durable Darling. The former Washington State transfer who prepped in Spokane has played at least 35 minutes in every single conference game. He has scored at least 20 points in seven of the 10, helping ISU to a 5-5 start.
Last weekend, Darling scored 29 points and dished out six assists against Eastern Washington before scoring 28 points and notching nine assists against Idaho. Monday against Northern Colorado, he had 20 points and four assists to earn Big Sky Player of the Week honors.
This season, he’s averaging 18.6 points and 6.2 assists per contest. Beyond the numbers though, it’s the snarl and the saunter that Darling brings to the Bengals that lands him on this list.
