Salish Kootenai College Bison kicked off basketball season on Friday with an alumni game.  

The SKC Bison Alumni celebrated their past wins and played the current Bison teams in Pablo at the Joe McDonald Health & Wellness Center. Over the last two years the Lady Bison team went 19-1 and 38-2 overall winning the 2024-2025 Tribal Sports Network Champions, 2023-2024 American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) Division 1 National Champions and the 2024-2025 AIHEC Division 1 National Champions back-to-back. 

The game started out with SKC president Michael Munson recognizing the women’s team's wins and perseverance through the challenges they faced. Athletic director and men and women’s coach Melissa Tiensvold then gifted each player a ring to pay tribute to their successes.  

The men’s team also had a number of wins with a record of 23-5 in last year's season. The men’s team placed 3rd at AIHEC and won the Tribal Sports Network Championship. The men’s team received medals for winning the network championship on Friday.  

Tiensvold has been coaching basketball for about 18 years and coaching at SKC since 2019, shortly after she became the athletics director.  

Tiensvold explained they have good squads on both teams this year with a lot of returning players on the men’s team and two on the women’s.  

“We got a new women's team, but looking forward to playing a lot of games, and we should have a really good season,” Tiensvold said. “We got a couple girls from Mission, couple girls from Browning. So, we got some pretty good local talent.” 

SKC Bison are a part of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium division, where they play College of the Muscogee Nation, Navajo Technical University and their rivals, Northwest Indian College.  

“We're going to play the Griz on Dec. 10. We're going to go play Carroll College,” Tiensvold said. “So, our conference consists of tribal colleges, but we try to play other schools as well.”  

The teams have a total of 14 men and 10 women, but the teams can only travel with 10 players. Players have to be full-time enrolled students at SKC to participate.   

The alumni game is held every year along with a community all-star game on Oct. 30. The all-star game includes players that are local stars who may have played at other colleges. The alumni put up a good fight against the current SKC teams with the alumni women’s team winning and later the SKC boy’s team beating the alumni.

SKC Basketball Schedule for 2025-2026 includes: Nov. 8 at Carroll College, Nov. 21-22 at Little Big Horn College, Dec. 4-5 at Fort Peck College, Dec. 10 at University of Montana, Dec. 11-12 at Rapid City tournament, Dec. 13 at the United Tribes, Jan 16-17 SKC, Jan. 23-25 at Fort Peck College, Feb. 6-7 at Northwest Indian College, Feb. 20-21 at Little Big Horn College and Feb. 27-28 at SKC.  

The home games include playing teams such as Little Big Horn, Spokane Community College, Fort Peck and Northwest Indian College. There will also be a Montana tournament and the AIHEC tournament in March.