Final home stretch ahead

Idaho drops to seventh in Big Sky standings over weekend

Close games haven’t gone Idaho’s way this season.

The Vandal men’s basketball team lost its sixth game by three or fewer points this season Saturday at Southern Utah. The second consecutive loss dropped the team to second place in the conference — one spot above the cutoff to make the Big Sky Tournament.

“We had a lot of open shots, we just didn’t make them,” Idaho coach Don Verlin said after the game. “A lot in and out, around the rim, ball go in and out. I mean, you hate to blame it on that, but it seemed like there was a lid on the basket tonight.”

The Vandals (11-14, 6-8 Big Sky) fell to the Thunderbirds (8-17, 5-9) 79-77 in overtime. Both teams held double-digit leads at different points in the game, but it was a 3-pointer by sophomore guard Sekou Wiggs with 10 seconds left in the game that sent the teams into overtime. Wiggs led the Vandals with 19 going 10-of-12 from the free-throw line.

The loss put Idaho in a precarious position heading into the last two weeks of the season. This week is the Vandals’ last home stint of the season, with a Thursday game against Montana and Senior Day Saturday against Montana State. Both games are in Memorial Gym this week since several Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival events are taking place in the Kibbie Dome.

“We’re in a situation as I challenged our guys in the locker room, I said, ‘Now our character is going to show,'” Verlin said. “There’s a lot of basketball to be played, there’s four games left, we have Senior Week coming up for three very good seniors. And like I told them … it’s a week we need to celebrate our seniors and show people how hard we play and how much this season means to us.”

The loss at SUU mirrored Idaho’s up-and-down season. The game was close through the first five minutes until Idaho started to pull away in the second half. A Perrion Callandret 3-pointer with 10:44 left in the half gave Idaho its largest lead of the game at 26-16. From there, Idaho struggled to shoot above 20 percent until late in the second half.

“We just didn’t do a very good job in our defensive execution,” Verlin said of SUU’s run in the second half. “I didn’t think we were playing quite hard enough, kind of let them get going. They had a couple guys step up, make some shots, but I didn’t think we had the energy we needed.”

Despite the loss, Verlin said he was proud of how his team fought back into the game. He said the stat that stood out to him was Idaho’s 19 offensive rebounds.

“When your shots aren’t going, like they weren’t going tonight for us, you gotta battle like crazy on the offensive rebounds … and you gotta just fight like crazy and find a way to scrape one out,” Verlin said. “I think we did that getting that thing into overtime.”

Stephan Wiebe can be reached at [email protected]

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Stephan Wiebe Sports reporter Sophomore in journalism Can be reached at [email protected]

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