UI’s ‘package deal’ has Vandals in contention

For their final season of college basketball, Olivia Nelson and Jennifer Aadland, for varying reasons, decided to step up from Division II to the Big Sky Conference and Division I Idaho.

The move has worked out extraordinarily well for the Vandals, who are 15-6 overall and 7-3 and in third place in the Big Sky deep in the regular season.

Nelson, at 5-foot-6, ranks fourth in the conference in scoring, averaging 14.2 points per game. Against Eastern Washington on Jan. 18, she tied her previous career high of 29 points in leading the Vandals to an 83-76 win.

She set a new career high with 30 points in a 77-62 win over Weber State on Thursday.

Going into the season, UI coach Arthur Moreira said rebounding was a concern for the team. No more. Aadland (6-1) ranks second in the Big Sky in rebounding, pulling down 9.9 per game.

Nelson, from Kansas City, Mo., started her career at Central Missouri. She decided to seek a graduate transfer for her final season because Central Missouri did not have the master’s degree in chemistry she was seeking. Devin Eighmey, husband of and assistant coach for former Idaho coach Carrie Eighmey, knew about Nelson from when the Eighmeys were coaching at DII University of Nebraska Kearney, and he reached out to her. Nelson said she found Idaho a compatible fit with a good chemistry program.

Aadland enjoyed most of her career at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D.

“I spent four years there with a coach I really liked,” she said.

But a coaching change convinced her to take a graduate transfer and finish a master’s in business somewhere else. As with Nelson, Eighmey contacted her and promoted Idaho. Aadland said even though she could only transfer 12 of the 24 graduate credits she had accumulated, she is on track to graduate this spring.

The Eighmeys moved on to South Dakota before they got a chance to coach Nelson and Aadland. But with Moreira, a Vandals assistant last season, the graduate transfers have found a coaching style they enjoy.

“Arthur’s emphasis is he really wants to push the ball,” Nelson said.

At Idaho, Nelson and Aadland have found the game is not too big for their talents.

“It was nerve-wracking against BYU our first game,” Aadland said. “(Moreira) makes everyone feel they have a role, big or small.”

Nelson said the Big Sky is similar to her old conference, the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association.

“The top players could come here and be really, really good in this conference,” she said.

She added, however, that Division I depth is greater and basketball is taken more seriously.

“I had a 10-day Christmas break (in Division II),” Nelson said.

“In Division II, you don’t have to do anything in the summer,” Aadland added.

Nelson said the schedule is a lot more grueling at Idaho.

“But a lot more time is spent for recovery, maintaining your strength and preparing for the next game,” she said.

The athletic training and nutrition support are ahead of what they found in Division II, Nelson and Aadland agree, and Idaho’s ICCU Arena is far and away the best facility in which they’ve played.

Moscow is similar to Warrensburg, Mo., where Central Missouri is the biggest attraction in town, Nelson said.

Augustana did not dominate the Sioux Falls sports scene the way Idaho does in Moscow, Aadland said.

“(Local support) feels like a very community type of thing,” she said. “People know your game.”

Nelson, coming from Central Missouri, was familiar with a college town’s social opportunities. Aadland said there is less to do in Moscow than in Sioux Falls. But the two of them say they have become more than casually familiar with a downtown Moscow restaurant.

“The Breakfast Club,” Nelson said. “That’s our favorite.”

Before they came to Idaho, Aadland’s Augustana and Nelson’s Central Missouri met once. It was a game in which Nelson got her original 29-point record.

“She had like 30 points,” Aadland said.

“It wasn’t a very good game,” Nelson said. “We won by 20.”

Teammates now, they proved they were more than up to the challenge of succeeding in the Big Sky, and they want to make the most of their final few weeks as Vandals.

“Obviously, we want to win a Big Sky championship,” Aadland said.

“We want to play in the postseason,” Nelson added.

Before they use their Idaho graduate degrees to get on with the rest of life, the two dream of playing professionally overseas. It worked out for the Vandals when Nelson and Aadland stepped up from Division II. Perhaps they have another rung on the basketball competitive ladder to climb together.

“Make us a package deal,” Aadland said.