It seemed like Idaho’s first win of the season was going to come Saturday night, when it hosted defending Big Sky champion Montana without its star Will Cherry. The Vandals a 15-point cushion early in the second half, only to see an energized Grizzly team systematically chip at the lead and, eventually, win it in the final seconds.
The experience against Montana seemed to help against Green Bay when Idaho enjoyed a similar second half lead, and a similar late second half push by the opponent to walk out Memorial Gym with a victory. In fact, Idaho led 50-35 at one point in both games.
With 6:37 remaining in the game the Vandals brought doom the Mem Gym roof when Denzel Douglas started the fast-break off of a steal, tossing it up to Stephen Madison for the Alley-oop dunk. The play gave Idaho a 66-47 lead, the largest lead of the game.
Green Bay would go on a 15-4 run the next five minutes, out-rebounding the Idaho and lulling the Vandals in to low-percentage shots quickly in to the shot clock. But by then it was too late. Idaho did a good job navigating the Green Bay full court press and clamped down defensively to ensure the first win of the season.
The win, and the fashion of the win, was both encouraging and discouraging. Green Bay was playing its fourth game in five days, so Idaho should have been able to run the floor more late in the second half and go for the throat. Though Idaho clamping down late in the game defensively when it needed to in order to ensure victory when it didn’t just three days before was an encouraging sign that the team knows how to win. Important for a team with a lot of new parts trying to find its identity.
Other notes
– F Stephen Madison ended the game 7 assists to go with his 19 points and Kyle Barone collected another double-double with 15 points and 10 boards.
– F Marcus Bell made his first start of the season, in place of Wendell Faines. Bell played 20 minutes, mostly in the first half, and collected 6 boards and blocked three shots. Bell was easily the most athletic kid on the court, but still has some work to do in refining his offensive game.
– Denzel Douglas and Mike McChristian are splitting minutes at point guard near evenly early in to the season, though Douglas seems to navigate the press and jump start the offense with the dribble drive a little more effectively than McChristian. McChristian is by far the better defensive player. McChristian has started the last three, though it wouldn’t surprise us to see Douglas get the start in New Mexico on Friday.
Here is some post-game video from coach Don Verlin and Denzel Douglas