Doshia Woods is honest about it. There have been times throughout this season that her Denver Pioneers could’ve folded, could’ve been consumed by their overall record. There was an eight-game losing streak around the turn of the year, but the latest time? It may well have been after a 30-point home loss to South Dakota last week, an especially stinging blow just as the Pioneers were starting to stack up wins.
 
While it may have been easy to give up – to pack it in – that’s not the mentality Woods has instilled in her team.
 
“I coach with positivity, and it was a challenge to find something positive every game, but I knew how important it was to keep us going,” she said. 
 
Her team has responded. With an emphasis on a next game, 1-0 mindset, DU picked up its biggest win of the year on the road at St. Thomas, completing a 3-1 stretch around that loss to the Coyotes. That has the Pioneers (7-17, 4-7) on track to be just where Woods wants them: playing their best basketball in February and March. 
 
At the heart of it? A sophomore duo that has grown as the year has gone on. 
 
The Pioneers had three players score at least 20 points against UST, with graduate student star Makayla Minett (21 points) joined by Emma Smith (20 points) and Jordan Jones (21 points) to contribute virtually all the offense needed to spark a fourth quarter comeback against the Tommies. 
 
The key role Smith (12.3 ppg, 3.4 apg) plays on this team is familiar, as she slotted in instantly to finish second on the team in minutes per game last year as a freshman. For Jones (13.6 ppg, 6.9 rpg), it’s a bit different, as she saw herself limited to just seven Summit League games in 2022-23 due to injury. But either way, that experience is helping the pair as sophomores.
 
“Those minutes helped us learn how to lead,” Smith said. “We obviously knew how to play basketball but needed that experience on how the game works at this level and at this pace.” 
 
Now healthy, Jones has especially broken out.
 
That may surprise some since, as Woods said, the league simply didn’t see much of her last year, limited as she was to just 15 minutes per game over those seven conference appearances. But it hasn’t surprised her coach. She knew she had an impact player on her hands from when she started recruiting Jones from Cheyenne, Wyo. Woods can recall texting her staff about the potential she saw in Jones: the shooting, the size, the strength, the basketball IQ. 
 
That’s now made its way onto Summit League courts. 
 
In their thrilling, race-to-100 win against Oral Roberts, it was Jones that got the Pioneers loose in the first half driving the lane, and ended up with 24 points (which included going 3-5 from distance). Against the Tommies, Jones helped the salt away a tight game at the free throw line. However, she’s done it, Jones has been a three-level threat this season. 
 
“[Jordan] is a matchup problem,” Woods said. “She can impact the game in a lot of ways. She’s a big catalyst to what we’re doing on both sides of the ball.” 
 
To Jones, being healthy and in better shape – something Woods harped on her for – has made all the difference.
 
“I definitely have a more positive outlook and I’m having a lot more fun,” Jones said. “Last year I was battling through an injury for half the season, it was tough to keep my spirits up, being unsure if I was able to go or not.”
 
As one of Jones’ backcourt running mates, Smith has also helped make that emergence possible. 
 
The Alabama native may not be scoring as much as she did as a freshman, but she’s worked on becoming more of a facilitator, and the attention she naturally draws has, according to her coach, helped ease the way for Jones and Angelina Robles (9.0 ppg, 3.0 apg), another sophomore guard. 
 
“[Smith] is getting a little more of a complete game,” Woods said. “She does so many things that don’t show up in the stat sheet, and has a phenomenal job understanding what the game calls for.”
 
Woods said there are things to clean up down the stretch, including defense and maintaining that 1-0 mentality  Overall, the Pioneers yet again have the everburning green light from distance, a Woods speciality. They lead the league in three point rate, with nearly 40 percent of their scoring attempts coming from long range. With shooters like Emily Counsel and Mary Wilson, there is always a chance DU can keep itself in any game on a hot shooting night. 
 
As the clock sounded on the Pioneers win at UST, it was the sophomore trio – Smith, Jones and Robles – that came together in an embrace near midcourt. Their emergence has the makings of a more than solid foundation in the Mile High City which, to Smith, was always the plan. 
 
“We really wanted to be the group that started to change the culture of the program,” she said. “This year we had a few struggles at the beginning and now it’s coming to light, and that makes us really excited and makes us want to work even harder.”