‘It’s not just for us.’ Idaho women’s basketball locks down NCAA Tournament spot
With 7.3 seconds left, the Montana State women’s basketball team set up an inbound play, needing a 3-pointer to force overtime in the Big Sky Tournament championship game.
University of Idaho redshirt senior Lorena Barbosa made sure that didn’t happen.
The 6-foot-5 native of Brazil swatted away the shot of Montana State’s Ella Johnson, preserving the Vandals’ 60-57 win on Wednesday afternoon at Idaho Central Arena in downtown Boise.
The Big Sky title won, Idaho is headed to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2016 — riding a program-record 18-game winning streak in addition to a program-best 29 overall wins this season.
“It’s a lot of people that decided to take a chance on us,” Idaho coach Arthur Moreira said. “This doesn’t happen just by one person, or two or three. It takes the whole team, the entire roster, all of our staff, all our support staff, our admin.
“So I feel like this is the people’s trophy right here. It’s not just for our program. It’s not just for us.”
Moreira, in his second season as the Vandals’ head coach, built this year’s roster with a mix of true freshmen and five standouts from the transfer portal, including Barbosa and fellow Brazilian Debora Dos Santos. Senior guard Kyra Gardner transferred from Washington State and earned Big Sky Newcomer of the Year.
Junior Hope Hassmann — the tournament MVP and an All Big-Sky first teamer — joined Idaho from Cal State Fullerton ahead of the 2024-25 season.
Moreira also happens to be the first Brazilian head coach in Division I history, giving the team from Moscow a real international flavor.
“I’m definitely proud of everybody,” said Dos Santos, a redshirt senior transfer from San Francisco. “Everybody decided to make some sacrifice to come here. And since the beginning, we had this goal. We stayed focused until the end and … we got it done.”
Top-seeded Idaho (29-5) led for more than 36 minutes of Friday’s 40-minute title showdown, and at one point was in control by 11 points.
But the No. 2 Bobcats (25-7) — last season’s Big Sky Tournament champions, coached by Tricia Binford, who was a standout player at Boise State in the ‘90s — chipped away at that deficit in the fourth quarter.
Montana State outscored Idaho 13-3 down the stretch, culminating with a 3-pointer from Johnson with 54 seconds left that cut the Vandals’ lead to 58-57.
But Idaho’s defense came up big, preserving the title.
“We have such a special bond,” Hassmann said. “On the bus ride here, we all painted our nails the same color. We just all love each other so much and want to do everything together.
“I feel like that was the motto of the game. At times when we couldn’t score, we just knew we needed to come together and get stops. And that was kind of the name of the game. I couldn’t be more proud of everyone.”
Three Vandals finished in double figures in the win, led by sophomore guard Ana Beatriz Passos Alves da Silva with 12 points. Hassmann and sophomore guard Ana Pinheiro had 11 points each, Dos Santos (9 points, 10 rebounds) came one point short of a double-double, and Barbosa chipped in seven points and a pair of blocked shots.
Idaho will learn its NCAA tourney seed and destination on Sunday, when the 68-team bracket is revealed beginning at 6 p.m. Mountain time on ESPN.
“I don’t care where we play. I’m just excited to go compete,” Hassmann said. “I feel like we obviously have a large winning streak, but that doesn’t matter at this point. We’re just going to go out there and give it our all.
“No matter who we play at the highest level, I feel like we can step out there and compete and just play hard.”
This story was originally published March 11, 2026 at 7:07 PM.
