Jenteal Jackson knew that a rebuild was required when she became Weber State’s head women’s basketball coach.
While the top of the Big Sky Conference has fluctuated greatly over the past five years, with Eastern Washington and Sacramento State making championship runs alongside consistent contenders Montana State and Northern Arizona, the Wildcats remained firmly stapled to the bottom of the standings.
In Velaida Harris’s five seasons, Weber State won double-digit games exactly once – 11 in 2021-22, the same year they hit their high-water mark of Harris’s tenure with a 6-14 Big Sky record.
And although Harris took over the program from Bethann Ord after Ord led Weber to 20-win seasons in two of her last three campaigns, it was not that long ago that WSU went 0-29 during the 2012-2013 season. Weber State women’s basketball has four winning seasons since Carla Taylor led WSU to back to back NCAA Tournaments in 2002 and 2003.
In other words, Weber needed a rebirth as much as a rebuild.
Jackson, a Salt Lake City native, former Utah Miss Basketball and two-sport athlete – basketball and golf – at both BYU and D-II Westminster, was next in line. Young and outgoing, with connections to the state, she fit the profile of a coach who could possibly turn the program around.
Still, she had just two prior years of head coaching experience – none in Division I. And even though the Wildcats took a slight step forward in Jackson’s first season to an 8-25 record and a Big Sky tournament win, recent history said the improvement was going to be difficult to duplicate. Heading into 2024-25, Weber State was picked dead last in the preseason coaches’ poll, and ninth by the media…and that was all before the injury bug hit.
Over the final month of the non-conference season, the Wildcats lost three rotation players, including starting point guard Margarita Satini, who had played under Jackson at Westminster.
With Jackson choosing to keep redshirts on three freshmen, that left Weber State’s entire healthy roster at a tidy eight players.
At that point, nobody could have blamed Jackson for throwing her hands in the air and (metaphorically) packing it in.
Good effort guys, we’ll give it another try next season.
Instead, Jackson has guided her hobbled squad to one of the most unlikely top four seeds the Big Sky Conference has ever seen. With a 10-8 conference record, the Wildcats take the No. 4 seed into this week’s Big Sky tournament in Boise, matching their highest finish in the league since 2007.
“(Jackson) has done a great job of piecing it together and finding something that works for them,” Idaho State 17th-year head coach Seton Sobolewski said in the days leading up to the Big Sky Tournament. “Defensively, they’re very prepared every game. They know what they want to do, and they understand your strengths.
“The thing they do in the Big Sky is, whoever wins the regular-season championship, you vote for that coach to be Coach of the Year. And with (Montana State’s) Trish (Binford), rightfully so. But if you look at other stuff, like who’s made the biggest improvement with their team, who is really coaching their team to play above their talent level? You have to think about Jenteal.”
Now, with a sophomore star, a makeshift point guard, a few key transfers and plenty of motivation, the Wildcats are looking to continue their unlikely story this week in Boise.
“It’s always hard to see a teammate go down,” Jackson said. “But I do think our group did a good job banding together in those moments, staying together, really picking up the slack where we needed it. … We did have, I think, four or five games where we had a seven-man rotation, (but) our kids never hung their head. They just put their foot down and found a way to get it done shorthanded, so I’m proud of them and the way that they’ve continued to show up through adversity.”
Sophomore Taylor Smith has been one of the key forces behind Weber’s ascendance. The talented 6-foot-2 forward, who was named first-team all-Big Sky on Friday, averaged 13.3 points, six rebounds and over a block per game.
“Her size, her speed, her skill set and the way she’s been continuing to grow and develop is exciting for us and extremely hard to guard from a Big Sky standpoint,” Jackson said. “She’s doing good things, and we’re putting in the work to just keep growing her game. We feel really excited about the things she’s added, and we’re continuing to work to make her nearly impossible to guard, that’s the goal.”
Smith’s continued development was one of the few things that went the way it was supposed to for Weber. But elsewhere in the lineup, Satini’s injury opened up a crucial hole at point guard. Into the gap stepped Kendra Parra, a former transfer from Metro State-Denver who began the year off the ball. In the first three games after Satini went down, she had just six total assists.
But starting with the Wildcats’ Big Sky opener against Northern Colorado, she’s had five or more assists in 11 of Weber’s 18 conference games. She had 10 apiece – against just five total turnovers – in back-to-back wins over Portland State and Eastern Washington two weekends ago, and finished the season averaging 12.1 points and 3.8 assists per game.
On Friday, Parra was named second-team all-Big Sky.
“We just had to put Kendra all over the place,” Jackson said. “You know, we were hoping this year she could stay in that shooting guard role almost 100% of the time, but she’s done a really good job. She’s such a savvy, fierce competitor, she just wants to win, so she’s really willing to do whatever the team needs to get the job done. … She does a good job of picking the defense apart and really trying to lead our group to be successful (and) I will say, her effort has been exceptional all year long.”
Smith and Parra were both in Ogden last year. But Antoniette Emma-Nnopu came all the way across the country to play a vital role for the Wildcats – and a great deal farther than that when talking about her career as a whole. Originally from Geelong, just west of Melbourne, the physical post player spent last year at UNC-Greensboro.
“There’s a lot of recruits out there, and some of them we won’t be a match for and some won’t be a match for us,” Jackson said. “But when it is a match, it’s a really beautiful thing. She was unlikely, coming all the way from North Carolina, originally from Australia, pretty random transfer portal get for us. But again, I think we connected really well. We aligned in the things that mattered to us – our vision and, ultimately, the type of basketball she wanted to play.”
Emma-Nnopu was snubbed from the Big Sky all-conference teams despite coming within a whisker of averaging a double-double with 9.4 points and 9.2 rebounds per game. The latter number was fourth in the league, but she led the league with 3.6 offensive rebounds per contest, and her willingness to do the dirty work opened up space for Smith, Parra and the rest of the team.
“She’s going to put her body on the line,” Smith said. “Not a lot of people recognize that kind of stuff. … She’s one of those players that gets it done night in and night out, and does all those little things that you sometimes don’t notice unless you’re really familiar with the game. Getting rebounds, 50/50 balls, taking charges, all those little things. She’s usually the one doing those, and she’s been a great leader this year.”
The Wildcats went just 3-7 in non-conference play, but four of those losses were by four points or fewer. In Big Sky play, they’ve completely flipped that switch, dominating close games with a confidence that seems completely alien compared to past Weber State teams.
They have three overtime wins, including in both of their games against Idaho State, plus two other conference wins by four points or fewer. In their regular-season finale last Monday, Emma-Nnopu hit a free throw with five seconds left to force overtime against Northern Colorado, before Smith made a layup with six seconds left in the extra period for a 68-67 win.
“Last year when we were in those moments, we tended to separate and go away from each other,” Smith said. “This year, the chemistry is way better. And I think (coach) Jack helps with that a lot. … She’s a very calm, collected coach. When we make a mistake, we usually know what we did wrong, or we know what we can do to fix it. She’s never the coach to yell in your face or tell you what you did wrong. And I think that builds a lot of confidence.”
In a twist of fate, Weber State is set to play Sobolewski’s Idaho State Bengals for the third time this season in the quarterfinal round on Monday. Just eight points have separated the two teams across eight quarters and two overtimes so far this season. But the Wildcats are ready if the third matchup is as close as the first two.
“In the past, I think Weber State women’s basketball has been a team that other teams can come in and roll over and beat them,” Smith said. “And this year, it was a big goal of ours to be like, we’re the ones that are going to get it done. It changes this year. And we kind of flipped our mindset in that way.
“We’ve shocked some people for sure this season, and I think everyone knows, playing us, that they have to be prepared. It’s not just going to be a walk in the park. So, yeah, I think we’re definitely gonna be well-prepared and cool-headed, and I think we’re gonna do pretty good.”
