The time has come: Can this be the year the Rams get to cut off the nets in Las Vegas?
The 2025 Mountain West Women’s Basketball Championship kicked off, and the Colorado State women’s basketball team is coming in with a chance at their first Mountain West title since the 2015-16 season.
The Rams (13-5 MW, 22-9 overall) come into the tournament as the No. 3 seed, giving them a first-round bye.
The final regular season conference standings are as follows:
- UNLV (16-2)
- Wyoming (14-4)
- Colorado State (13-5)
- San Diego State (11-7)
- New Mexico (11-7)
- Fresno State (8-10)
- Air Force (7-11)
- Boise State (7-11)
- Nevada (6-12)
- Utah State (3-15)
- San Jose State (3-15)
With the Rams earning themselves a first-round bye, they face the winner of the No. 6 vs No. 11 seed game, Fresno State against San Jose State.
The teams faced Sunday, with FSU coming out victorious in a 67-62 effort. This sets up a quarterfinal matchup in which the Rams take on the Bulldogs, who snapped out of a four-game losing streak with their first-round win.
The two teams met once during the regular season, where the Rams walked away with a large 68-48 win in Moby Arena, in which CSU led the entirety of the game.
For the Rams, they look to continue their rather impressive season with some momentum, finishing 7-2 in their final nine regular season games.
A squad that was expected to regress has not shied away from any challenges. Losing their star McKenna Hofschild as well as others to graduation this past offseason created a path for CSU to embrace a ‘strength in numbers’ mentality this year.
This year’s younger group finished with both a better overall record and a better conference record than the year prior, and the strong play of many newcomers have paved the way for that feat to come about.
The team’s leader, fifth-year forward Emma Ronsiek, transferred over from Creighton to play her final collegiate basketball season with her sister, Hannah Ronsiek. A star leader — coming to fill a leadership role Hofschild left behind — did not disappoint in her one season with the Rams.
Going into the tournament, Emma Ronsiek is averaging a career-high in both points per game (17.7) and rebounds per game (5.9) as the top source of offense for CSU.
As part of the All-Mountain West honors, Emma Ronsiek was awarded Mountain West Newcomer of the Year alongside being named to the All-Mountain West team. Hannah Ronsiek was named as a member of the MW All-Defensive Team — leaving both sisters with some achievements in their season of playing together.
Right behind Emma in scoring averages is guard Hannah Simental — who transferred from Northern Colorado before the season — averaging 10.8 points per game shooting just over 40% from three in her final collegiate campaign.
Adding along the contributions of first-years Kloe Froebe and Brooke Carlson — who were each named to the Mountain West All-Freshman Team — CSU has shown everything needed to be considered real contenders for a MW title.
Coach Ryun Williams has had to rebuild several key areas of the team, filling the gaps left behind as the season has gone on. Now in his 13th year of coaching the Rams, Williams seemed to have little to no issues knowing how to get this team to the top of the standings in no time.
CSU will face the Fresno State Bulldogs Monday, March 10 at 8:30 p.m. PST with a chance to move on to the semifinals, where they would face the winner of the matchup between No. 2 seeded Wyoming and No. 7 seeded Air Force.
Reach Devin Imsirpasic at sports@collegian.com or on Twitter at @DImsirpasic.
