SAN DIEGO -- While the greatest strength of the San Diego State women’s basketball team during their 2026 Mountain West regular season championship campaign has been that they’re ‘All In’ together, the team had several standout individuals honored by the conference.
Guard Nala Williams was selected as the Mountain West Player of the Year, sophomore guard Kaelyn Hamilton earned Sixth Player of the Year and Stacie Terry-Hutson was named the Mountain West Coach of the Year.
The senior transfer also earned spots on the All-Mountain West and All-Defensive teams, while sophomore guard Naomi Panganiban was the second SDSU player named to the all-conference team.
Williams finished the regular season as Mountain West’s full-season assist/turnover ratio leader at 2.38 and She averaged the most assists per game (4.32) in conference play and ranked second overall (4.07) — her 10 assists against San José State on Jan. 24 matched the single-game high for the season — plus fifth in conference (1.58) and seventh overall (1.67) in steals.
After being named NCAA DII Player of the Year last season at Cal State Dominguez Hills, Williams recorded a trio of double doubles this season, most recently scoring 13 points with 11 rebounds against UNLV on Feb. 18. Williams also had 20 and 10 against the Spartans on Jan. 24, and scored her season-high of 25 points (the Aztecs’ single-game high for the year) with 10 boards against Cal State Bakersfield on Nov. 15, 2025.
Ardie Crenshaw - The Sporting Tribune
SDSU guard Naomi Panganiban (24) makes a running layup during an NCAA Women’s Basketball game against Fresno State Saturday February 21, 2026 in San Diego, California.
Panganiban was the conference’s fifth-highest scorer in conference games (14.40 points) and sixth in all games (13.9 points) and, while her 1.90 3-pointers per game in conference were fifth-most and 1.79 overall was good for seventh.
The sophomore from La Jolla Country Day High posted 22 double-figure scoring games this season, leading SDSU in scoring 10 times and topping the 20-point plateau five times. Panganiban also had eight games where she made three or more from beyond the arc, going for a season-high four triples three times, with the most recent coming at Air Force in the regular season finale on March 3.
Hamilton’s sixth player selection marks the first time a Scarlet and Black player has earned the distinction — the Mountain West first announced a sixth player of the year for the 2008-09 season.
Averaging SDSU’s most minutes (18.2) per game off the bench for the season, Hamilton topped the team with the most games (12) where she led the squad in steals. She also was the high-point-scorer in four games and scored in double-figures 10 times, including setting a career-high with 18 points on senior day against Wyoming on Feb. 28 and scoring 10 or more in five of her last seven games.
Ardie Crenshaw - The Sporting Tribune
SDSU guard Kaelyn Hamilton (12) makes a running layup during an NCAA basketball game against Nevada Saturday January 31, 2026 in San Diego, California.
It’s the first time since the 2012-13 season that the Aztecs have had the conference player of the year and third time in program history, with Williams joining Chelsea Hopkins from 2012-13 and Courtney Clements from 2011-12. Williams' all-defensive team nod was also SDSU’s first since McKynzie Fort in 2017-18.
SDSU has now had two players selected to the All-Mountain West team six times, with the most recent being Abby Prohaska and Adryanna Quezada for the 2023-24 season. It’s the third time in four seasons the Aztecs have had a pair of selections, as in 2022-23 Asia Avinger and Sophia Ramos earned the honor.
The Coach of the Year honor for Terry-Hutson is her first, becoming the second coach on the Mesa to earn the award after Beth Burns won it three times in the Mountain West, most recently in 2012-13. The four times SDSU coaches have earned the distinction matches former member Utah for most times a program has had their coach recognized in the Mountain West: five additional programs have had coaches honored three times.
San Diego State finished the regular season with a 25-4 record overall and 19-1 in the Mountain West, setting a new conference record. It marks the second time the program has put up four consecutive 20-win seasons, matching the run in the Western Athletic Conference from 1993-94 to 1996-97.
Ahead of the campaign, Panganiban was the only Aztec named to the 10-player preseason all-conference team and was one of three sophomores selected by the conference’s coaches and select media. Kendall Mosley was also selected as the Mountain West’s preseason Freshman of the Year.
Last season, when SDSU finished tied for fourth in the conference and went on to win their third Mountain West tournament championship, the Scarlet and Black had three players honored by the conference. Veronica Sheffey was the team’s lone all-conference selection, while Panganiban and Natalia Martinez earned All-Freshman honors.
The Aztecs open the 2026 Mountain West Championships as the No. 1 seed in the quarterfinals. They will face the winner of No. 8 seed Wyoming and No. 9 seed Air Force, with the game tipping off at noon on Sunday, March 8 at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.
