Vandal Women host Montana Tech on Wednesday

MOSCOW, Idaho – The Idaho Vandal women’s basketball team welcomes a talented Montana Tech team that is 5-1 so far this season. The game is a regular season game for Idaho, while it is considered an exhibition game for the Orediggers. This is only the second meeting ever for the Vandals and Diggers, the first coming in 1982 at the NCWSA Regional before the NCAA organized women’s championships.

ABOUT IDAHO
Idaho has won by double digits four straight times, including three road wins against D1 opponents. The Vandals defeated Cal Poly 74-54, shooting a season-best 52.6% (30-57) from the field and outshooting the Mustangs 40-28. Idaho is 1-0 against NAIA opponents this year. Rosie Swiss leads Idaho with 13.7 PPG and Jennifer Aadland Averaged 10.5 points and 10.7 rebounds per game.

ABOUT MONTANA TECH
Five Orediggers are averaging double figures, led by Aubrie Rademacher, who is averaging 14.0 points per game, while Hadley Humphreys is posting a team-high 9.2 RPG. Montana Tech is 5-1 against NAIA teams, but 0-2 in exhibitions against DII and DI teams, losing 63-55 to Portland State. Head coach Jeff Graham is in his third season as head coach in Butte.

FINAL TRANSFERS
Three vandals; Olivia Nelson, Rosie Swiss And Jennifer Aadland Bring extensive experience to the fight for Idaho. Nelson has started every game in her four-year career at Central Missouri (117). Jennifer Aadland has 98 starts in 99 career games for Augustana (SD). The two met early last season, with Central Missouri emerging victorious. Aadland scored 16 points while Nelson scored a career-high 29.

Schweizer appeared in 93 games, including six starts for West Coast Conference team Pacific.

TRANSFERS OF ALL FRESH TEAM

Kelbie Washington And Hope Hassmann Both received All-Freshman Team honors for their respective teams. Hassmann played and started all 31 games for Fullerton last season, scoring 302 points and providing 87 assists.

Washington was an All-Big 12 honoree at Oklahoma and earned National Freshman of the Week honors. She missed the last two seasons due to illness.

INTERNATIONAL IMPACT
Five players in this year’s squad are international players, including two from Brazil, the head coach’s home country Arthur Moreira and one from Portugal, who shares the Portuguese language with Brazil.

Vitória Carvalho and Ana Beatriz Passos come from Brazil. Ana Pinheiro comes from Portugal. Anja Bukvic from Belgrade Serbia and Rosie Swiss comes from Australia.

ICCU ARENA
The Vandals start their fourth season in the fantastic ICCU Arena in Moscow. The $51 million arena seats just over 4,200 fans and features the latest technology for fan and student-athlete experiences. The Vandals are 20-19 all-time in the arena.

COACHING STAFF
First year head coach Arthur Moreira assembled a coaching staff of former colleagues, opponents and trusted recruiters.

His first step was to retain and promote him Drew Muskatell. Muscatell was promoted to assistant head coach in the offseason. He is entering his seventh season as an assistant with the Vandals and has worked for three different head coaches.

Moreira added former Montana assistant coach Lindsey Foster to his employees. Foster coached at Montana for one season and before that was the head coach at the DII Academy of Art in San Francisco.

Derek Saich served as operations manager and assistant coach at Moreira’s former school in San Francisco. The two worked together for two seasons at USF.

The final assistant is Denise Rosarioa veteran junior college coach from South Plains Junior College in Texas. She has extensive international recruiting relationships and is from Minas Gerais, Brazil.

NET HISTORY
During the 2020–21 season, women’s basketball introduced daily Division I NET rankings. This season, the Vandals achieved their highest ranking of 126 on 03/11/21. They finished with an overall ranking of 133, improving 86 places from their starting position of 219.

Over the past two seasons, Idaho has struggled in the rankings, failing to break above the 200 mark. The highest ranking in 2021-22 was 202 (05/02/22) and the highest in 2022-23 was 205 (05/03/23).

In 2023-24, Idaho had its highest seed at 167 and continued to climb. As of 1/10/24, the Vandals were ranked 125th, breaking the program record.

REBOUND LEADER
After playing two strong, long Power Five level teams, you might think that Idaho would have been dominated on the boards, but the Vandals have outscored every opponent so far this season, including a 52-36 margin over them Washington State. The Vandals are at the top of the Big Sky for team rebounds. Jennifer Aadland led the way with an average of 10.7 rebounds per game, including 18 rebounds against Washington State.

PRE-SEASON BIG SKY SURVEY
The Vandals were ranked eighth in the Big Sky Coaches poll and seventh in the Big Sky Media poll. No Idaho players were named to the Big Sky Preseason All-Conference Team. Northern Arizona was picked to win the league in both polls.

Idaho was picked at the same spot a season ago and finished sixth in the league.

FORMER ENEMIES OF THE GREAT WEST
Idaho and 10-7 all-time against Cal Poly. The two teams played in the same league from 2001-02-2004-05. The two teams last played in 2023, when the Mustangs won 65-55.



Newcomer effect
All five starters so far this season are new additions to the team. Of Idaho’s 394 points this season, 375 have come from players who weren’t on the roster a year ago. Rosie Swiss has two away games with more than 20 points

RECOVERING GUIDE

Jennifer Aadland is ninth nationally in defensive rebounds and 16th in rebounds per game. She grabbed a career-high 18 rebounds against WSU and reached double figures in four of six games.