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OPENING TIPOFF: The Snow College women’s basketball team will begin its 2025-26 season at the Snow College Classic this weekend in Richfield. The Badgers will take on a pair of opponents during the two-day event.
 
Snow College will kick off the season Friday against Yavapai College at 5:15 p.m. before a matchup with former Scenic West Athletic Conference foe College of Southern Nevada Saturday at 1:15 p.m. Both matchups will take place inside the Sevier Valley Center.
 
KNOW YOUR FOE: Friday’s season-opener against Yavapai will be just the third meeting between the two programs. The Roughriders reinstated their basketball program for the 2022-23 season, and the Badgers have played them in two of the previous three seasons. The Badgers have gone 1-1 in their previous matchups with Yavapai, including an 84-62 victory Dec. 13, 2023.
 
The Roughriders finished the 2024-25 regular season with a 5-20 overall record, including one forfeit, and a 3-15 mark within conference play. As a team, they averaged 50.1 points per game on 31 percent shooting from the field and 23 percent from beyond the arc.
 
CSN, which left the SWAC to join the Arizona Community College Athletic Conference in 2024, finished the 2024-25 season with a 22-10 overall record and a 10-8 mark in conference play.
 
The Coyotes finished fourth in the conference standings and defeated Arizona Western College in the first round of the Region 1 Tournament. They suffered a 74-43 defeat against Eastern Arizona College in the Region 1 Championship.
 
As a team, CSN averaged 82.2 points per game on 32 percent shooting from the field and 29 percent from beyond the arc. Defensively, the Coyotes surrendered just over 51 points per game to opponents throughout the season.
 
The Badgers, who didn’t play CSN last season for the first time since 2020, are 7-4 all time against the Coyotes. After winning seven of their first eight meetings, Snow College has lost three in a row, including two matchups in Ephraim.
 
2024-25 IN REVIEW: The Badgers finished the 2024-25 season with a 21-11 overall record and a 9-6 mark within SWAC play and claimed the two seed in the Region 18 Tournament. Snow College earned a 61-50 victory against North Idaho College in the first round before suffering a 67-63 defeat against Salt Lake Community College in the Region 18 Title game.
 
After starting the season with a 12-9 record, the Badgers won eight of their final nine games of the regular season to reach 20 victories. It is the first time since the 2018-19 season that the Badgers have won 20 games in a season and the first time finishing above .500 since 2021-22.
Following their 7-0 start to the season, the Badgers climbed inside the NJCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Top 25.
 
The Badgers averaged 67.4 points per game on 44 percent shooting from the field. They connected on 33 percent of their 3-point attempts and shot 67 percent from the charity stripe as a team. Snow College outscored opponents by an average of 9.0 points per game.
 
Snow College scored 70 points or more on 12 occasions throughout the season, including five games scoring 80 or more. The Badgers went 11-1 in those matchups with their lone loss coming in an 82-72 defeat against No. 10 Capser College Dec. 3.
 
ROSTER, ROSTER, WHO’S ON THE ROSTER: The 2025-26 roster will consist of a total of 14 players. They will be led by five sophomores, including one transfer student, and will be joined by nine incoming freshmen.
 
The four sophomores who are returning include Sydnee Smith, Seini Tuipulotu, Katie King, and Dalana Jokovljevic, who was sidelined the entirety of the  2024-25 season due to injury. Emily Backus, a sophomore from Winnemucca, Nevada, joins the Badgers after transferring from CSN.
 
Smith appeared in 30 games, including four starts, for the Badgers last year. She averaged 5.5 points and 3.5 rebounds per game while shooting 49 percent from the field during the 2024-25 season. She scored in double figures in six total games throughout the year, including a career-high 16 points in a 91-46 victory against Central Wyoming College Dec. 7.
 
Tuipulotu also appeared in 30 games during the year while recording 4.4 points, 2.6 rebounds, and 1.5 assists per game. She scored a career-high 11 points in a 76-69 overtime victory against North Idaho College Feb. 1, 2025.
 
King appeared in just nine games throughout the season and scored four total points and grabbed 10 rebounds.
 
Jokovljevic played in 22 games for the Badgers during the 2023-24 season. She averaged 3.2 points and 3.2 rebounds per game on 35 percent shooting from the field. Scored a career-high 17 points in a 121-38 victory against Community Christian College Jan. 20, 2024.
 
Backus started 21 games for the Coyotes and played in 27 total games while averaging just under 28 minutes per game during the 2022-23 season. She averaged 6.5 points per game on 34 percent shooting from the field. She led the Coyotes with 2.8 assists per game and was tied for second on the team with 1.3 steals per game. She scored a career-high 15 points in a 90-65 loss to the College of Southern Idaho Feb. 18, 2023.
 
Six of the 14 players on the roster come from the State of Utah, while three come from Nevada. Two student-athletes are from Idaho, and one is from Colorado. The roster features two international signees, one from Japan and another from France.
 
SCHEDULE ME THIS: The Snow College women’s basketball team will play 13 home games during its 2025-26 regular-season schedule.
 
The Badgers’ 2025-26 campaign will kick off Oct. 31 with the Snow College Classic, which will be held inside the Sevier Valley Center on the Richfield Campus. They will meet Yavapai College on opening night with tipoff scheduled for 5:15 p.m. Snow College will play the College of Southern Nevada the following day as part of the tournament.
 
The Badgers will then travel to the Grand Canyon State and participate in the Eastern Arizona Classic. They will face three teams during the tournament, beginning with Cochise College Nov. 6. They’ll face the Gila Monsters, who were the Region 1 Champions last season before wrapping up the tournament against Yavapai College Nov. 8.
 
Snow College will face a pair of opponents from Wyoming at the Eagle Classic, hosted by Utah State University Eastern Nov. 14-15. The Badgers will play Central Wyoming College and Eastern Wyoming College during the two-day tournament.
 
The Badgers will play a trio of matches in Texas for the first time in more than a decade as they participate in the Midland CC Classic Nov. 20-22. They’ll face the host school before squaring off with South Plains College, which received an at-large bid to the 2024-25 NJCAA National Tournament, and Odessa College.
 
Snow College will play Arizona Western, who also received an at-large bid to the 2024-25 NJCAA National Tournament, and CWC at the Salt Lake CC Classic Dec. 5-6 in Taylorsville.
 
The Badgers will play inside the Horne Activity Center at the Snow College Holiday Invitational beginning Dec. 12-13 in Ephraim. They will take on Otero Junior College and Harford Community College during the tournament. Snow College will then wrap up its non-conference slate of games with a home matchup against Navajo Technical University Dec. 18.
 
Scenic West Athletic Conference play begins Jan. 3 in Ephraim as the Badgers take on Colorado Northwestern Community College. They’ll face Salt Lake Community College Jan. 6 and Utah State University Eastern Jan. 8.
 
The Badgers’ will take one of two trips to Idaho and take on the College of Southern Idaho Jan. 15 and North Idaho College Jan. 17. After a road matchup with USUE Jan. 22, Snow College will play five of its next seven games in Ephraim. The Badgers will wrap up the regular season against NIC and CSI Feb. 26 and 28.
 
The Region 18 Tournament, should the Badgers qualify, will begin Friday, March 6, and will be hosted by the SWAC winner. Snow College reached the Region 18 Championship last season but suffered a 67-63 defeat to SLCC.
 
ON THE SIDELINE: Zu Grinsell will return to the sidelines for her sixth season as head of the program.
 
Over her tenure with the Badgers, Grinsell has compiled a 79-64 overall record and a 40-36 mark within conference play. Her teams have finished above .500 in three of her first five seasons and have qualified for the Region 18 tournament in four of five seasons. Her 21 victories last season are the most in a single season since she was named head coach in 2020.
 
Last season’s second-place finish in the Region 18 Tournament was the third time the Badgers have played in the Region 18 Title Game under Grinsell’s direction. They have finished as the runners-up in all three appearances and finished fourth in 2022-23.
 
Grinsell, a native of Spring Creek, Nevada, will be joined on the sideline by Assistant Coach Jenna Czarnecki, who is entering her second season with the team. Megan Tanner will serve as a volunteer assistant coach for the second straight season.
 
BADGERS ON THE AIR: All Snow College home games this season will be broadcast by SnowTV. They will air on the Scenic West Digital Network. All home games and select road games will also be simulcast on the radio on KMTI 650 AM.
 
Tanner Wilkinson will be providing the play-by-play for all games broadcast by SnowTV this season. He is entering his first year as the ‘Voice of the Badgers’ after taking over for Gary Chidester, who retired over the summer.
 
All broadcasts will begin with a pregame show approximately 20 minutes before tipoff and will include exclusive coverage of the game and an interview with head coach Zu Grinsell. Post-game shows will begin immediately following the conclusion of the game and will last approximately 10 minutes.
 
Live stats will be provided for all home games as well as a number of road games during the season. The link to live stats will always be provided at snowbadgers.com.
 
UP NEXT: The Badgers will head to Thatcher, Arizona, for the Eastern Arizona Classic Nov. 6-Nov. 8. They will take on a trio of opponents during the three-day tournament, beginning with Cochise College Thursday, Nov. 6, at 3:00 p.m. They’ll take on No. 3 Eastern Arizona College the following day at 7:00 p.m. before wrapping up the tournament against Yavapai Saturday, Nov. 8, at 2:30 p.m. All times are in MST.
Cochise finished the 2024-25 season with a 20-10 overall record and a 12-5 mark in ACCAC play to finish fourth in the standings. The Badgers are 2-4 all time against the Apaches and have lost back-to-back matches. The two teams have not met since the 2022-23 season.
 
EAC went 28-7 during the 2024-25 campaign and finished in second place in the ACCAC with a 13-14 record. They defeated CSN in the Region I Title Game to clinch a berth in the NJCAA National Tournament. They won three games in the national tournament before suffering a 70-60 loss to Northwest Florida State College in the semifinal round.
 
The Badgers will face Yavapai for the second time in nine days to wrap up the tournament. For video streaming and live stats information, visit snowbadgers.com.
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