The Penn State’s women’s basketball team is currently adjusting to today’s college sports’ landscape just like everyone else.
PSU is in a complete rebuild after losing 10 of its 12 players from last year’s roster to the transfer portal.
But first-year head coach Tanisha Wright is hoping to restore the women’s basketball program to how it was back in the late 1980s through the early 2000s when she played at Penn State and was coached by the late Rene Portland.
One of the very first statements Wright did was hire her former teammate and Penn State women’s all-time leading scorer, Kelly Mazzante, to be one of her assistant coaches.
Both Wright and Mazzante knows what it takes to be a champion in the Big Ten and to have a champion’s mindset in State College .
Also in her introductory press conference March 23, Wright confirmed she believes she has the necessary resources to succeed at Penn State, and would not have taken the job otherwise and feels confident in her ability to rebuild the program.
Already this offseason, she has signed two highly-touted high school prospects and three portal transfers to Happy Valley.
Her first signee was 5′-9″ guard Kamrah Banks.
Banks is from Indianapolis, Indiana and was tabbed as the No. 1 combo-guard in the state.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.The 2026 McDonald’s All-American nominee and four-year Nike EYBL player averaged 20.4 points, 4.9 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 2.4 steals for Crispus Attucks High School. She also broke NBA Hall of Famer, Oscar Robertson’s, single-game scoring record at Crispus Attucks by netting 63 points.
Next, Wright brought in 5′-11″ sophomore guard Ava Black from Auburn, New Hampshire. She is the Lady Lions’ first portal pickup ahead of the 2026-2027 season. Appearing in 30 games last year, Black played her freshman season at Vanderbilt and helped the No. 2 seeded Commodores to their first NCAA Sweet Sixteen appearance since 2008-09.
Then 5′-11″ junior guard, Devyn Quigley, from Manchester, New Jersey is now calling State College home.
Quigley’s first two collegiate years were with NC State where she helped the Wolfpack to back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances.
Last year, she averaged 4.3 points and 2.4 rebounds per game while shooting 41.5% from the field.
Yesterday, 5’-9” guard out of Iowa, Ashlee Brown, committed to the Blue & White. Brown played for Example Academy Girls Prep School in Illinois and was also a McDonald’s All-American nominee back in January like her new teammate Kamrah Banks.
And just today, Petra Bozan, a 6′-3″ junior forward/center from Split, Croatia has signed with the Lady Lions. Bozan played her first two collegiate seasons at Nebraska where she averaged 6.6 points and 3.4 rebounds per game last year while shooting 51.1% from the field.
Coach Wright, Mazzante and the rest of the staff look to continue the momentum they have already started in this new era of Lady Lion basketball.
