Idaho women’s basketball draws No. 13 seed, will visit Oklahoma in NCAA Tournament first round

MOSCOW, Idaho – The Vandals look at their first round NCAA opponent, Oklahoma, and see a more heralded version of themselves.

The Sooners, 24-7, ranked 10th nationally and seeded 4th in Region 4 of the women’s tournament, have a dominant inside game similar to Idaho. Center Raegan Beers is a finalist for the Wooden Award, given annually to the nation’s best player. Like Idaho, the Sooners want to stand on the accelerator. Oklahoma has the second-highest starting five on offense in the country, and the team is averaging 86.7 points per game.

Vandals coach Arthur Moreira says “they play fast. They are one of the teams, when we saw who we wanted to play like, that we watched.”

Whether the Vandals are a junior version of the Sooners or their equal could be the game’s key question. Can Idaho’s Debora dos Santos and Lorena Barbosa battle Beers in the paint, and can Idaho match the Sooners’ team speed?

“We’ll see,” Moreira said.

“I think it is going to be a really fun game. I can’t imagine a game that will be more fun for our fans to watch.”

Fun was the operative word at a watch party that drew several hundred fans to the ICCU Arena for the men’s and women’s NCAA selection shows. Not a bad turnout, at all, since the university is on spring break.

The crowd and the teams, that were already primed for giddiness, got even more excited when it was announced the women will play at Oklahoma’s Lloyd Noble Center Friday in Norman, less than an hour’s drive away from the men’s first round game against Houston Thursday in Oklahoma City. No one felt the need to dampen the mood by pointing out the women’s and men’s March Madness experience begins in Tornado Alley – during tornado season.

Big Sky Conference Tournament MVP Hope Hassmann said, “Obviously, they are the higher seed. They will be bigger, stronger and faster. But why not us?”

Dos Santos, a graduate transfer from the University of San Francisco, referenced the tournament as the culmination of her college career.

“I am definitely finishing high,” she said. She is one of four senior or graduate transfers, along with Barbosa, Kyra Gardner and Mary McMorris, who are playing their final year at Idaho. Moreira spoke about how much they added to the Vandals this year. Idaho finished a school record 29-5, has an 18-game winning streak and is both the Big Sky regular season and tournament champion.

“The only thing I wish was different is that we could find some more eligibility for these girls,” he said. The team this year “just kept finding different ways to win.”

“I don’t remember what it feels like to lose,” Hassmann said. “We know how to win games.”

The winning came at a price, that Moreira is glad Idaho no longer has to pay.

Playing at Oklahoma “will be fun not having the higher seed anymore. I guarantee we might be one of the most dangerous 13th seeds in the tournament.”

According to dos Santos the Vandals have achieved all their season goals.

“Now we are just trying to have fun,” she said.

Hassmann told the watch party faithful, “We’re excited to put on a show and hopefully have an upset here.”

Which tracks perfectly with Moreira’s vision of how this could play out.

“What’s the tournament called? March Madness, baby,” he said. “We’re going to go for the upset.”