SportsMarch 22, 2013

Vandals haven't been to the NCAA tournament in 28 years and they start three freshmen

Connie Ballestero (left) and Christina Salvatore pose together during their days playing summer basketball with the OC Rhythm in Southern California. Ballestero and Salvatore are now freshman starters on the Idaho women’s basketball team that will face Connecticut in the first round of the NCAA tournament Saturday.
Connie Ballestero (left) and Christina Salvatore pose together during their days playing summer basketball with the OC Rhythm in Southern California. Ballestero and Salvatore are now freshman starters on the Idaho women’s basketball team that will face Connecticut in the first round of the NCAA tournament Saturday.Photo courtesy of Carlos Ballestero
Connie Ballestero
Connie Ballestero
Christina Salvatore
Christina Salvatore
Ali Forde
Ali Forde

MOSCOW - Seven games into the season, the University of Idaho women's basketball team was getting outscored by a dozen points a night, and Objective 1-A on opponents' scouting reports was a no-brainer: Get tough with Alyssa Charlston.

There might not have been a 1-B.

So how did these Vandals become the first UI team in 28 years to wrangle a berth in the NCAA tournament?

The possible answers are numerous, but prime among them is the quick development of three true freshmen, all of whom have swum their way to the starting lineup in recent weeks and brought a spirit of cohesion that derives partly from a Southern California summer program.

The rhythmically named backcourt duo of Christina Salvatore and Connie Ballestero - former teammates on an Orange County summer club called, of course, the OC Rhythm - have combined with post Ali Forde to give the Vandals a critical influx of rookie energy, and even a bit of savvy.

Idaho, surprise champion of the Western Athletic Conference tournament last week, will make its first appearance in the national tournament since 1985 when it challenges powerhouse Connecticut in a first-round game at 10:30 a.m. PDT Saturday. The Vandals (17-15) are a No. 16 seed in the Bridgeport Regional while UConn (29-5) looms from its customary No. 1 spot.

Fifth-year Idaho coach Jon Newlee, who claimed three Women's National Invitation Tournament bids during a six-year tenure at Idaho State, calls his latest Vandals the most cohesive team he has ever coached, a strong statement about a club that starts three freshmen.

"It is amazing, because they're so young," he said. "Young players tend to want to prove things on their own, do things on their own."

But Idaho's chemistry got a head start with the precollegiate bond between Ballestero, Salvatore and another Vandal from their California milieu, sophomore Krissy Karr.

Make no mistake: The Vandals dance primarily to the rhythm of Charlston (13.7 ppg, 7.0 rpg), a willowy 6-foot-1 forward who has led the team in scoring for two years and whose value only grew after the departure of three starters from last year.

But she's chiefly a finesse player, not an iron-handed ruler of the paint, and when opponents learned to neutralize her with aggressive tactics on both ends of the floor, the Vandals looked a bit lost. In early December, they were 1-6 and shooting 32 percent.

They needed to diversify, and the process began with the two freshman pals from Orange County. Salvatore and Ballestero - they hail from Italian-American and Hispanic backgrounds, respectively - played for rival high schools but spent eight summers together in an OC Rhythm program directed by Carlos Ballestero, the point guard's father, who now seems to be enjoying the Vandals' sudden success as much as anyone.

He calls himself the Rhythm's "founder and gym sweeper," while delegating the coaching duties to others.

"About eight years ago, I got laid off (from a former job) during Christmas," he said, "and one day all the parents came and brought me a check and said, 'Here, we're starting a club and you're the director. Here are the club fees.' And it kind of snowballed from there."

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His program places more emphasis on developing life skills and John Woodenesque humility than on building a juggernaut, so the mere fact that his daughter and Salvatore have succeeded in landing scholarships at the same school, let alone are starting as freshmen against UConn in the Big Dance, is no less than astonishing.

They had an advance scout. Another point guard, Karr, who spent her final season of club ball with the Rhythm, started for the Vandals as a freshman in 2011-12 and helped get her friends to Moscow a year later.

"Connie and Christina's dream - they wanted to play in college together," Carlos Ballestero said, "and I'm going, 'You guys better step up your game if you think one college is going to recruit both of you.'

"Lo and behold, somehow or some way, they both got recruited to Idaho. And not only that, they're starting. It's incredible. Even knowing they were both going to Idaho, if they had played five minutes a game, I'd be thrilled."

Ballestero has unseated Karr as a starter and is averaging 7.4 points a game. And Salvatore (10.6 ppg) has knocked down 86 goals from 3-point range, extending the school record by 10 and counting.

The Vandals' third freshman starter, the 6-2 Forde, daughter of former Washington State linebacker Brian Forde, is a two-sport athlete who redshirted for the UI volleyball team last fall and needed a few weeks to adjust fully to the rigors of college basketball.

But her inside presence is now easing some of the burden on Charlston, and the rookie from Woodinville, Wash., leads the team with 7.5 rebounds a game while scoring 6.5 points a contest.

In the WAC tournament at Las Vegas, it was Karr who beat the buzzer for a game-winning bucket against San Jose State in the first round, and it was fast-improving sophomore guard Stacey Barr who was named tournament MVP.

But both Newlee and Charlston say the key to the Vandals' overall improvement since November has been the three key newbies.

"Yeah, I think it's the coachability of the freshmen," Charlston said. "That's how our coach recruits. He recruits girls that are humble, who are good all-around people and want to get better. We had our struggles throughout the season, and we knew we have a standard that we weren't playing up to. And to get to that standard, we had to work as hard as we possibly could, night in and night out, in practice, keeping each other motivated, keeping each other focused.

"And just the fact that they were so open to being coached and improving, all of them ... that's been huge for us."

NOTES - Connie Ballesteros will be facing a former teammate, from elementary school, in standout Connecticut forward Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis. ... The UI Alumni Association has scheduled a number of Idaho-UConn watch parties in various regions, including one that begins at 10:30 a.m. PDT Saturday at Gambino's restaurant in Moscow.

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Grummert may be contacted at daleg@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2290.

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