The Northern Colorado Bears are the Big Sky's great unfinished story — a program that has done almost everything in the modern era except the one thing that defines March: the NCAA tournament bid. Under head coach Steve Smiley, UNC has become a machine for winning basketball games — two straight 20-win seasons, a Big Sky regular-season crown, the nation's best shooting team — and yet the Dance remains the white whale. That tension, between how good the Bears have been and how much is still on the table, is what makes Greeley one of the most interesting programs in the West.
Smiley is a Colorado basketball lifer. He became the 20th head coach in program history in March 2020, elevated when Jeff Linder left for Wyoming, and he brought a winner's résumé: six seasons running the junior-college powerhouse Sheridan College, plus years as a Weber State assistant. The hire was continuity — and it turned into the winningest tenure of the program's Division I era. In his first six seasons, Smiley guided the Bears to four postseason appearances and set the school record with eight postseason wins. Sixteen former Bears went on to professional careers during his time in Greeley, twelve of them under his watch.
The breakthrough came in 2024–25. Northern Colorado went 25–10 with a 15–3 Big Sky mark, sharing the regular-season championship — the program's first — and earning its first-ever berth in the NIT. The 25 wins were the second-most in school history, and the style was unmistakable: UNC led the nation in field-goal percentage at 50.7 percent and ranked fourth in effective field-goal percentage. This was not grind-it-out mid-major ball. This was a beautiful, efficient, pass-and-cut machine that carved up defenses for 40 minutes a night.
The encore nearly matched it. In 2025–26 the Bears went 20–12 (10–8 Big Sky), winning 20 games for the second straight year — and along the way they did something no UNC team had ever done: beat Colorado. The 86–81 win over the Buffs was the first in program history over the state's flagship, a milestone that meant as much in Greeley as any conference trophy. Smiley's team went 11–3 at Bank of Colorado Arena, turning the building into the toughest road stop in the Big Sky.
The roster has been a blend of development and shrewd recruiting. Graduate center Elijah Malone anchored the interior at 6-foot-10 and 270 pounds, while Zach Bloch and Brock Wisne carried the scoring load on the perimeter. And the future got a glimpse in 7-foot-1 freshman Leonardo Van Elswyk, who arrived via Italy's Olimpia Milano pipeline — a sign of how far the program's recruiting reach has grown under Smiley. This is a program that finds players, develops them, and plays a system that makes them better.
History here is young but rich. Northern Colorado's Division I era began in the mid-2000s, and Jeff Linder's teams gave the program its first taste of national relevance — including the 2018 CollegeInsider.com Tournament championship, the program's first postseason title. Smiley, Linder's successor, took that foundation and raised the ceiling: more wins, better shooting, bigger stages. The one box left unchecked is the NCAA tournament. In a one-bid league, everything funnels into three days in March, and the Bears have been close enough to taste it.
The 2026–27 season is Smiley's seventh in Greeley, and the expectations have shifted. This is no longer a plucky upstart — it's the program everyone in the Big Sky circles on the schedule. Montana and Montana State still own the league's March pedigree, Weber State is never far away, but Northern Colorado has been the most consistent winner in the conference over the last three years. The question isn't whether the Bears will win games. It's whether they can win the right three in March.
Greeley itself is part of the story — a proud college town an hour north of Denver, where Bank of Colorado Arena has become a genuine fortress and the fan base has grown with the winning. The Bears play the prettiest basketball in the Big Sky, they develop pros, and they've beaten the state's flagship. All that's left is the banner that matters most. In college basketball, unfinished stories are the best kind.
The Bears' March history is a story of near-misses that makes the hunger real. Jeff Linder's 2018 team won the CollegeInsider.com Tournament — the program's first postseason championship — and Smiley's 2025 squad reached the Big Sky championship game before falling short of the automatic bid. Every spring in Greeley ends the same way: wondering what might have been, then getting back to work. That chip on the shoulder is baked into the program now.
What's remarkable is how Smiley has done it: not with one transcendent star, but with a system. The Bears share the ball, shoot it at a historic clip, and defend well enough to let the offense win. It's a formula built for sustainability in the portal era — and it's why Northern Colorado, once an afterthought in the Big Sky, is now the program every contender measures itself against. The only thing left is the banner.