At Colorado State, the Ronsiek sisters are priming the Rams for a run at an MWC title

Emma and Hannah Ronsiek entered the room and sat on chairs usually filled by reporters.

“I have a question,” Emma Ronsiek interjected near the end of Williams’ answer to a reporter’s question. “What do you think of Hannah’s 18 boards tonight?”

“Hannah Barkely!” Williams exclaimed playfully, at which point, Hannah joined in the fun.

“Hannah Rodman,” she said, correcting her coach’s description of herself.

“You’re too nice to be Hannah Rodman,” Williams responded with a broad smile.

A”Sister Act” has invaded the Mountain West Conference, providing Williams and his CSU crew with their best opportunity in a decade to win a conference title.

It may also be their last chance to win another MWC title. CSU is set to join the reformed PAC-12 in July of 2026.

Emma and Hannah Ronsiek are from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. They eventually got recruited to play college basketball at separate schools.

Emma, the older and taller of the sisters, initially signed on at Creighton where she excelled for four seasons. The 6-foot-2 forward was named to the All-Big East Freshman Team at the end of the 2020-21 season. She went on to earn recognition as an All Big-East First Team player in both her sophomore and senior campaigns.

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REUNITING IN FORT COLLINS

Emma decided to transfer to Colorado State as a graduate student so she could play her final year of collegiate eligibility in Fort Collins with her sister, Hannah, a junior guard who has excelled in her own right.

“I put my name [in the transfer portal], and then [selected] ‘Do not contact,’ just because I don’t think I would have been tempted, because obviously this is what I wanted to do, and this is who I wanted to spend my last year with,” Emma told The Next.

“I feel like you don’t get the opportunity to live with your sister when you’re both in your twenties. It’s kind of like you live together in high school and then you never get that time back. So a lot of it is the basketball piece, but I’d say just an equal amount is the piece of just living together and doing regular day like activities, like going to Target, fighting about stupid stuff, just all that,” Emma explained.

Emma’s arrival in Fort Collins created immediate expectations for a Rams revival. Colorado State was picked preseason to finish third in the MWC, but also received four first place votes. Emma was named the preseason Newcomer of the Year and the MWC Co-Player of the Year, along with Wyoming’s Allyson Fertig.

So far, Ronsiek has lived up to the hype. She leads the MWC in scoring at 18.1 points per game and is the 20th leading scorer in the nation with 271 points in 15 games. She’s also leading the MWC in three-point shooting percentage, draining 39.4% of her attempts from beyond the arc.

In only two months of basketball at CSU, Ronsiek has already been named the MWC Player of the Week twice, first in mid-November after sparking her team to wins over USF and Oregon State, and then again in late December after leading the Rams past UTEP and Georgia. The latter win was the first by CSU over an SEC opponent since 1998.

Emma leads the Rams in nearly every offensive statistical category, including points per game (18.1), assists per game (3.4), made three-pointers (37), made free throws (44), and minutes played.

Emma led all scorers with 24 points against San Diego State after registering only two points in the first half due to foul trouble. After the intermission, she came out blazing, tallying seven of the Rams’ first ten points on 3-for-4 shooting.

The “point forward” as Williams likes to call her, displayed the full range of her talents, driving to the basket and making plays in the paint, shooting from distance, and defending tenaciously against Adryan Quezada, SDSU’s leading scorer.

After the game, Williams made clear that establishing Ronsiek early in the second half was a priority for the Rams.

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“I think a player like that, where she sat a long time, and she’s used to being quite productive and facilitating, so we weren’t going to shy away from it,” Williams told reporters. “She’s, our kid. We’re going to feed it. And, you know, she was very productive. . . We’re a lot better when she’s on the floor.”

Hannah Ronsiek is two years younger than Emma, but the 5-foot-11 junior guard takes a backseat to no one. Hannah leads the Rams in rebounding with 6.3 per game and is second on the team in scoring.

The 18 rebounds she grabbed in CSU’s win over San Diego State on New Year’s Day were a career high and the second highest by any player in the MWC this season.

THE CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES OF SIBLINGS PLAYING TOGETHER

Having two high-octane sisters on the court at the same time creates challenges and opportunities for the coaching staff.

“They’re very competitive towards each other, like when they guard each other in practice, it really gets amped up,” Williams told The Next in mid-November when the season was just getting underway. “But they’re also a support system for each other. . . I think they bring out the best in each other. I think they’re able to hold each other accountable at a little different level than maybe somebody else communicating something . . . to them.”

The sisters themselves dismiss any talk of a sibling rivalry.

“You know, I would say the only potential disadvantage we have is we just can get a little snippy at each other,” Emma told The Next. “I mean, we just obviously are literally together 24/7, so we’re gonna get a little bit annoyed with each other at times. And I think that could be, I guess, a disadvantage, but yeah, mostly it’s all great . . ., especially on the court.”

“Yeah, it’s concerning to me when I see sisters who, like, don’t fight,” Hannah added. “It’s like, how do you guys have a perfect relationship? But yeah, it’s been a blast.”

Williams also thinks Emma’s presence on the team has accelerated Hannah’s development. “[Hannah’s] game just keeps growing, and it’s, I think, grown at a little faster pace since Emma’s been here, because Emma gets it out of her more than probably a coach or another teammate and so and Emma can say it in a way that maybe we can’t, you know.”

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There have been games this season where Emma and Hannah have dominated the action to a nearly absurd degree. Against San Diego State, for example, they combined for 40 points, nearly 60% of their team’s total output. In the same game, they combined for 25 rebounds, only 3 less than San Diego State’s entire roster grabbed.

“I haven’t noticed anything like that,” Emma told The Next about other players being left out. “You obviously have your circle, or, like, you’re obviously close with everybody on the team. . . .So you had your people before, and then I came in, I was a little hesitant about that. . . . I played with the same girls for four years, so it was like, I don’t know who I’m gonna fit in with. I know my standing with Hannah, but I didn’t know who else. But yeah, the girls have just been great, and I think we’re all just like, a really close team.”

A DYNAMIC DUO OF FRESHMAN GUARDS FROM ILLINOIS

This Rams team is not solely about the Ronsiek sisters. Williams has put together a well-balanced squad consisting of newcomers and veterans, including a pair of heralded freshmen guards from Illinois in Kloe Froebe and Brooke Carlson.

Froebe, a 5’8″ guard from Lincoln, IL, combines playmaking grit with excellent ball-handling skills and shooting touch. She was voted the MWC Preseason Freshman of the Year after being named the 2024 Illinois Miss Basketball in addition to the 2024 Gatorade Illinois Girls Basketball Player of the Year.

Froebe is averaging 7 points and 3 rebounds in just over 18 minutes of playing per game. She’s started most games for Williams.

Froebe led the Rams in scoring with a career-high 15 points in a 70-52 romp over UTEP on December 16.

Carlson, a 5’8″ guard from Batavia, IL, plays a game similar to Froebe, albeit it with a bit more pace. Her best game was against Gonzaga on December 8 at home when she scored a career-high 18 points and led the Rams to a 74-72 overtime victory.

Emma and Hannah Ronsiek have been deeply impressed by what they’ve seen so far from Froebe and Carlson.

Carlson recently entered CSU’s starting lineup and has provided a nice compliment to Froebe in the backcourt. In the Rams’ win over San Diego State, for example, Carlson contributed 7 points and 5 assists. But what Williams really likes about Carlson is her ability to help CSU speed up the game and generate baskets in transition.

“[I like] her pace, . . . her ability to explode with the ball in her hands, and she can create stuff at the rim for herself and for her teammates,” Williams told reporters after the San Diego State game. “You know, she spreads it really well, and so it just gives us a little different pace. And we like that out of the gate.”

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“[T]hey’re super valuable to our team, super important, and they’ve been giving us really good minutes and really good baskets,” Emma Ronsiek told reporters after the San Diego State game. “Sometimes they can get sped up, but that’s just freshman. I don’t even remember my freshman year, but I was probably a nightmare when I was on the court sometimes. But I think they gave us really valuable minutes, and even on the bench, they’re always encouraging. I don’t really see them as typical freshmen. I think they’re they’re kind of advanced for their for their age, but yeah, they gave us really good minutes tonight.”

Hannah Ronsiek concurs with her older sister’s assessment. “I think they’ve also, like, really adjusted throughout the season of just playing to and adjusting to the college pace, because it is a big jump from high school. So I think that the non-conference gave them a lot of experience and helped them to [adjust] to the conference. They’re playing great.”

CAN THE RAMS CONTEND FOR AN MWC CHAMPIONSHIP?

After completing a 9-4 non-conference slate, the Rams are off to a 2-0 start in conference play. They notched a tough road win against Utah State and a solid home triumph against San Diego State.

In their first 15 contests, the Rams have turned the ball over only 9.4 times per game, which is second best in the nation.

To finish on top of the MWC, the Rams will have to find a way to get past UNLV. The Rebels have dominated the conference for the past three seasons, losing only 4 conference games since 2021-22.

But the Ronsiek sisters may be the secret weapon that CSU has been waiting for. After all, Emma Ronsiek knows what it takes to beat UNLV; she scored 23 points in Creighton’s 87-73 win over UNLV last year in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

“I definitely think this could be a special year,” Emma told The Next. “I came here with the intention of winning a lot of games, and I won a lot at Creighton, so I just wanted to bring that winning mentality. Last year, we ended UNLV’s season in the tournament, and UNLV has kind of been that sore thumb on everybody’s side, just everybody in the Mountain West can’t really get over that hump, and they’re a great team, well coached, but it’s just something like nagging at me, like I want that.”