Montana Tech of the University of Montana Women's Basketball

Jeff Graham was introduced as Montana Tech's head women's basketball coach on August 1, 2022. Under Graham's tutelage, the Orediggers have improved on their win total in each of his seasons, most recently with an 18-12 campaign in 2024-25 that saw Tech reach the NAIA national tournament for the first time in more than a decade.    Graham came to Butte from Belt, Montana, where he built a powerhouse girls’ basketball program at Belt High School. During his tenure, the Huskies accumulated a 358-42 overall record that included six Class C state championships, seven divisional titles, 11 conference titles, and 11 district titles in 15 seasons. For his efforts, Graham was named the Montana Coaches Association Coach of the Year six times in girls’ basketball. Graham was also the head football coach at Belt for 15 seasons, head track & field coach for nine, and the athletic director from 2012-22. Graham's Huskies posted an 89-51 record on the gridiron, a run that included four divisional championships. His track teams garnered 18 district titles and 11 divisional titles along with six state placings. Previously, Graham served as an assistant coach for the University of Great Falls during the 2006-07 season and recruited many of the players who went on to break the program record for wins in the 2008 season. A high school standout in every sport at Chester, Graham led Montana in scoring as a junior before playing basketball for several programs in the Frontier Conference from 2001-2006. He graduated from University of Montana Western.   Jeff and his wife, Megan, live in Butte with their children, Cadence, Ellison, Jace, and Jimmer.

Raised in Hall, Montana on the family ranch, Frankie Bignell joined the Montana Tech women's basketball staff in August 2023. Bignell returned to Big Sky Country after serving as the graduate assistant coach at NCAA Division II member Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas from 2021-23. Following her first year at Angelo State, the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches named Bignell its women's graduate assistant of the year in the small-college division. The year before arriving at Angelo State, the Rambelles finished with one win. In her first year, they finished fourth in the Lone Star Conference. The following year, 2022-23, the Rambelles won the Lone Star tournament with a team that produced two All-Americans, and four all-conference players. Prior to Angelo State, Bignell spent time as an assistant at Montana State University-Northern in Havre and Sheridan College in Wyoming. She coached the freshman girls at Capital High School in Helena in 2018-19. Bignell competed for Frontier Conference rival University of Montana Western, where she was a team captain as a senior and helped the Bulldogs to appearances in the NAIA tournament's semifinals and Round of 16 in her senior and junior seasons, respectively. She is a graduate of Drummond High School, where she was a four-sport athlete and earned all-conference and all-state honors in both volleyball and basketball and was a state qualifier in multiple track & field events. Bignell holds a degree in business administration from Montana Western and a master's in coaching and sports administration from Angelo State.