With the clock ticking down and pressure mounting, the opposing team had the ball, looking for a score. In that moment, when the best player on the other team is bearing down, staring sophomore guard Ana Pinheiro in the eyes, daring her to stop her, Pinheiro feels the most comfortable, even though she’s an ocean away from home.
From the time Pinheiro picked up a basketball, defense was what she loved, and it remains a huge part of her game.
“I really love defense,” Pinheiro said. “And I think, like, when they put the best players on me, it’s extra motivation and a challenge for me. Sometimes scoring is not good. I always know that I’m going to play defense. I really like the mentality of defense.”
Pinheiro, a native of the vibrant culture of Braga, Portugal, worked hard on the defensive end from the moment she first touched a basketball, a commitment that has made her one of the best defenders at this level.
“Since I was little, my coaches always told me defense is 90% effort and 10% technical, you know,” Pinheiro said. “So, if you want to play, you need to want to play defense. He always had this mentality with us.”
Every game Pinheiro runs onto the floor, laces up her shoes and pulls on her no. 37 jersey, she’s playing with that same mentality she had when she was first learning to shoot a basketball.
She began with her local club in Braga before moving to a high-level training center in Lisbon, where top players from around the country lived and trained together for two years.
She then moved to CPN in Porto, where she won back-to-back youth national championships and helped the senior team earn promotion to the country’s first league.
Along the way, she also represented Portugal at the U16, U18 and U20 national team levels. However, Pinheiro had a dream to play professionally, and after talking with her agent and family, she wanted to try coming to America.
She connected with University of Idaho head coach Arthur Moreira and quickly decided where she wanted to go.
“I asked my agent to search for something in America. He told me about this school. I was also talking with my coach from CPN, and he helped me make my choice,” Pinheiro said. “He knew a friend of Arthur, so it was easier because he could tell me if he’s a good coach. I FaceTimed with Arthur. He showed me everything, and I knew my decision.”
The move from Portugal’s coast to the Palouse wasn’t easy. Pinheiro not only had to learn a new style of basketball but also the language and culture of America, all while missing her family back home.
“When I came here, I struggled a lot with homesickness,” Pinheiro said. “America is so different. The people, the culture, everything is different. So that was a big shock for me.”
Pinheiro struggled with her confidence on and off the court. However, as more time passed, she started to gain confidence, and her teammates and the Moscow community became crucial to her development.
After her freshman season, where she averaged 15.4 minutes per game with 3.3 points and 2.7 rebounds, Pinheiro has burst onto the scene with an impressive sophomore campaign.
This season, Pinheiro is averaging 27.8 minutes, 10.5 points and 5.6 rebounds while establishing herself as the Vandals’ best defender, recording 24 steals and 18 blocks.
While her defensive prowess showed from day one, her offense was another story. After a summer representing Portugal at the FIBA U20 Women’s EuroBasket, she returned with an improved offensive game.
In the season opener, Pinheiro made her first career start and rolled to 16 points, helping defeat Washington State 87-85. Since then, she’s set four career scoring highs, finally eclipsing her previous best with 19 points versus Eastern Oregon.
Pinheiro is an explosive guard who can score at all levels. Her aggressiveness on offense and defensive excellence have fueled her breakout season. Pinheiro’s true calling has always been defense, and it has shown up when it matters most.
Down the stretch of the past five games, she has faced three of the best scorers in the Big Sky Conference: Northern Arizona redshirt freshman guard Naomi White, Montana State sophomore forward Taylee Chirrick and Montana sophomore forward Avery Waddington.
White came to Moscow averaging 22.5 points per game and hadn’t scored under 10 in more than two games this season. Pinheiro held her to nine points on 4-12 shooting.
In the following game against Chirrick, who had been voted national player of the week while averaging 18.4 points per game, Pinheiro limited her to 3-14 shooting and 15 points, seven of those from the free-throw line.
This past Saturday, when the Montana Grizzlies came to town, Waddington arrived averaging 15 points per game and left with just six points on 2-10 shooting.
Associate head coach Drew Muscatell nicknamed Pinheiro “the glove” after defensive great Gary Payton, a player Pinheiro knew nothing about.
“Drew gave her the nickname ‘the glove,’ and then I asked her, ‘Do you know who Gary Payton is?’ She had no idea,” Moreira said. “She’s too young for that, but we’re still going to call her ‘the glove.’ She keeps shutting people down. It makes it a lot easier to defend when you have a player that you can just stick on the other team’s best player, and you know that they’re going to do their best.”
Her long arms, defensive IQ and desire to lock down every player she faces have made her a crucial part of the Vandals’ defense.
Pinheiro’s game is humming on the court, but what she’s most proud of is the progress she’s made off it.
Last year, she could barely speak English, which forced her to write all her papers and do all her homework in Portuguese before translating it. Now she’s speaking the language better than ever and putting in the work to excel in the classroom.
“I’m a very different person and player from the first time I came here to now,” Pinheiro said. “Basketball-wise, I think the most important thing I had to develop was being more physical and embracing the contact. Non-basketball-wise, the language. I feel way more comfortable. Even in classes when the teacher tells me to speak up and stuff, I try to talk. I already feel more comfortable. I’m proud of that.”
Two years ago, Pinheiro made a choice to leave the vibrant streets of Braga for a small college town in the Palouse. From then to now, she has grown into one of the most important players for the Idaho Vandals and their quest for a championship.
Every time the ball is tipped, from the opening whistle to the final buzzer, Pinheiro is in her element, whether she’s locking up on defense or scoring at the rim. She took a chance on herself, and that gamble has paid off.
When she eventually hangs up her no. 37 jersey for the last time, she’ll have far more than her success on the court to be proud of. She’ll have conquered a new language, a new culture, and the challenge of competing thousands of miles from everything familiar, proving that sometimes a risk is worth taking.