A new era of Lady Lion Basketball has begun in State College.
This new era is being led by head coach Tanisha Wright.
In her introductory press conference in March, the West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, native stated that her main goal is to “restore the excellence” of the program. She acknowledged the team’s decline over the last decade, emphasizing that rebuilding the program to its championship-winning standard was her dream job.
An excellence and standard set mostly by the late, great Rene Portland, who coached Penn State for 27 seasons and finished her career at State College with an overall record of 606-236 including 21 NCAA Tournament appearances, a Final Four appearance in 2000, five Big Ten Championships and leading the program to its first-ever No. 1 ranking in 1991.
Wright played for Portland from 2002-05 and tallied 1,995 career points, good for seventh on the program all-time list. Alongside her scoring, Wright also added 621 rebounds, 484 assists, 267 steals and 61 blocks. She was a three-time selection Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, a three-time All-Big Ten first-team selection and was a three-time recipient for Academic All-Big Ten honors.
She then went onto play 14 seasons in the WNBA and also coached in the WNBA for five years, with three of those years being a head coach for the Atlanta Dream.
Wright and her coaching staff, which includes PSU legend Kelly Mazzante (2000-04), takes over a program with zero players returning from the (11-18) 2025-2026 team.
They have replenished the roster with nine players to this point.
Kamrah Banks (right) – #3
Banks is a 5′-9″ freshman guard of out of Indianapolis who was tabbed the No. 1 combo-guard in Indiana her senior year.
Ava Black (middle) – #6
Black is a 5′-11″ sophomore guard 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.
Devyn Quigley – #0
Quigley is a 5′-11″ junior guard from Manchester, New Jersey. Her first two collegiate years were at NC State where she helped the Wolfpack to back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.Ashlee Brown – #5
Brown is a 5′-9″ freshman guard from Des Moines, Iowa who played her senior year of high school at Example Academy in Frankfurt, Ill. Brown helped her team to the Elite 8 in the Grind Session Women’s World Championship in 2025-26. In January, she was named a McDonald All-American nominee.
Petra Bozan – #4
Bozan is a 6′-3″ junior forward/center from Split, Croatia. 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.
Cristen Carter – #24
Carter is an experienced, 6′-4″ senior forward from Indianapolis, Indiana who spent her first two seasons at Butler and last year with Georgetown. Carter averaged 4.6 points and 4.1 rebounds during her junior campaign at Georgetown, putting together four double-digit scoring outings for the Hoyas.
Enjulina Gonzalez (left) – #11
Gonzalez is a 5′-9″ guard who comes to Penn State as a seasoned graduate student. The Miami, Florida native arrives in Happy Valley after two seasons at Mercer, one at Miami Ohio and one at Georgia. She helped the Bulldogs earn a No. 7 seed in the 2026 NCAA Tournament.
Skylar Durley – #23
Durley is a 5′-9″ sophomore guard from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma who comes to Penn State after spending her freshman year at Nevada. As a member of the Wolf Pack, Durley earned 2025-26 Mountain West Freshman of the Year. She averaged 11.8 points per game to total 367 on the year and owns 186 rebounds, 70 assists, 28 steals and seven blocks.
Irene Garcia – #9
Garcia is a 6′-1″ freshman guard/forward and is the latest Lady Lion signing who comes to State College from Urnieta, Basque Country, Spain. In 22 games for Segle XXI Barcelona Academy last season, she averaged 6.3ppg, 6.7rpg, 1.1apg, and 1.2spg. In 2024-2025, she played at La Salle.
Maybe this group of Lady Lions will be looked back on someday as the group that helped start to recapture the tradition of winning basketball for the Penn State women’s basketball program.
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