Vermont has arguably the tiniest basketball footprint in the United States.
According to the National Federation of High School State Associations (NFHS), as of the 2024-25 season, Vermont ranked dead last among the 50 states in high school basketball participants for both boys (697) and girls (563). The University of Vermont frequently sends its men's and women's teams to the NCAA Tournament as a prominent America East mid-major, but the history of transcendent native talent probably fits on one hand.
No man from Vermont has ever played in the NBA. Nicole Levesque is the lone woman to reach the WNBA, playing one season in 1997. She and Jade Huntington, who helped Vanderbilt make the 1992 Elite Eight, are considered the standard for Vermont stardom. High-major college stars are practically generational. The Vermont Sports Hall of Fame includes six women's basketball players, none of whom graduated high school after 2000.
Which makes Anna Moser's trajectory special.
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"I'll let her game and what happens over the next few years kind of speak for itself, but I think you're going to see that name up there in that conversation of best female basketball players ever to come out of Vermont," said Chuck McDonough, Moser's longtime trainer.
Moser, a 5-foot-8 blur of a point guard, has skyrocketed out of her Rutland hometown to become one of New England's top 2027 prospects. She captured Vermont Gatorade Player of the Year honors as a Rutland High sophomore, and two years later, took home our NEPSAC Class AAA Player of the Year award as a champion at Hoosac. Moser has entrenched herself in the Power Four tier of scholarship offers, recently adding Indiana and Florida to a long list that includes Arizona, Mississippi State, Syracuse, Boston College and many more.
Elite Vermont hoopers get stuck in a puzzle. For Moser to reach the dreams she's held since elementary school, even McDonough advised her to play outside the state. The Moser family now lives in Clifton Park, N.Y., and Moser plays at a New York prep school and for a New York club team in Team Northeast.
But she still considers herself a Vermonter at heart. Moser listens to Noah Kahan, who grew up an hour away in Strafford. She wears No. 0 to honor Wayne Lafley, her former Lone Wolf Athletics AAU coach who passed away in 2022, and she still returns roughly eight times a year to train with McDonough.
"I think it's definitely important to me (to represent Vermont), because they've done a lot in my life, and I want them to know that I value every opportunity they've given me," Moser said.
Moser caught the basketball bug early and started training with McDonough around nine years old. She would take the two-ball exercises McDonough taught and hammer them in the semi-finished basement of her Rutland home. McDonough, a former Vermont college player, knew Moser would have to far outshine her local competition to achieve her long-term goals. He quickly noticed an obsessive work ethic that could make those dreams possible.
"One of our big tenets was, 'Hey, Anna, if you want to do this and you want to go play at the collegiate, Div. 1 level, and you have these other dreams, you've got to be the best ball-handler that's ever come out of Vermont,'" McDonough said. "And she would look at me, and I think she would say, 'Yeah, I'll do that.'"
By seventh grade, Moser struggled to find enough girls for consistent pickup runs. She was also a shy young teenager and didn't want to play against boys her age. Her father, Dennis, suggested Moser join his Tuesday night men's league. Moser would show up consistently for the next five years, giving herself more physical competition against older players while also feeling less social pressure.
"From a shooting perspective and a play perspective, she always killed us, outside of the physical part, right? The physical part's real, and she was a small kid," Dennis said. "But I think when we got to — she'd say earlier — but ninth, 10th grade, she became a problem for me."
Moser played two years at Rutland High and took off, averaging 16.2 points as a sophomore and capturing Vermont Gatorade Player of the Year. But Rutland — the fourth-largest city in the state despite a population under 16,000 — quickly ran out of ways to challenge Moser.
Moser's mom, Kate, is a UVM track & field Hall-of-Famer (which can explain Moser's blazing speed), and Dennis played college baseball. Neither parent had much experience in the world of youth hoops.
Moser started her AAU journey with Lone Wolf Athletics, a longtime Vermont staple program, and played through eighth grade. Then, seeking older competition, Moser found NY Havoc and played two years with the program on the Under Armour circuit. In 2025, Philly Rise's EYBL team suffered an injury and invited Moser to join them. That meant 3.5-hour drives to Philly on Saturday, then back for one of Moser's younger brother's hockey games the same day, then back to Philly for more AAU on Sunday.
Moser played on the EYBL circuit last year but then learned it does not allow reclassified seniors — by this time, Moser had transferred to Hoosac and moved to the 2027 class. So she moved again to Team Northeast, a New York-based, Select Power 24 program.
In the span of five years, Moser has suited up for four different AAU programs and two high schools, in addition to moving states as a family in 2024 when she transferred to Hoosac. It put her introverted nature to the test.
"That was definitely one of the hardest parts," she said. "I think that was part of the discomfort, is I was just so shy, so I definitely had to learn to be (social). Especially as a basketball player, on the court you need to talk too, which is something I've learned. But just being shy is definitely hard, especially when you're doing a bunch of new opportunities and things. But that's something that my coaches told me really quick, and something I knew I had to work on, so I kind of had to figure that out on my own."
Moser's shyness and her unassuming physical stature contrast sharply with her on-court flair. She leaves defenders in the dust with hesi moves, crossovers and turbo drives. She drills deep step-back 3s and models her game after Kyrie Irving and Hannah Hidalgo. Hoosac head coach Julie McBride heaped on praise for Moser's potency off the ball.
"She has that ability to play pro because, number one, her work ethic is really good. Number two, she moves so well without the ball," McBride said. "She moves better than anybody that I've seen, even at the pro level."
When McDonough trained Moser growing up, he restricted her to jumpers no further than 15 feet from the basket until she developed consistent form. He would let her step back when she mastered the shot, and Moser kept on stepping back until well behind the arc.
Around eighth or ninth grade, McDonough watched Moser knock down 52 free throws in a row and scold herself for missing the 53rd. A week later, she made 54 in a row and got frustrated again after missing No. 55. Two weeks later, she hit her new record (still believed to be standing) of 64 straight made free throws.
McDonough calls Moser a "wicked perfectionist." Moser aims for three workouts per day and laughs, admitting she's "a little bit crazy about it." McBride often talks with her about avoiding "the rabbit hole" and spiraling when struggles happen on the court. In their first year together, McBride had to learn how to get Moser out of her own head in those instances. Sometimes that's with a harsher reminder, and sometimes it's by taking the reins off and letting Moser work through her slumps.
Moser took a massive leap in production and maturity during her second season at Hoosac. She averaged more than 20 points per game, canned 43 percent of her 3s and logged back-to-back 30-plus-point games during a critical stretch en route to the Class AAA title. McBride also noticed Moser come out of her shell.
"She was singing on the bus this year, where last year, she had her headphones on," McBride said. "I think that just allowed the connection that she had with everybody, where everybody knew that she was the best player, but she was also human too. She was also a kid. So it was just awesome to see her come out of her comfort zone and and start to be a person other than just a basketball player."
Moser is about halfway through her final AAU season, and even with more than 20 Division 1 offers, she says she'll always feel underrated. She hunts matchups against nationally-ranked opponents and often mentions proving people wrong. Perhaps it's because still, given her Vermont roots and her size, Moser believes she's not on the map yet.
"I'm small. There's not a lot to me. I just feel like I just outwork people," Moser said.
