With just under three minutes remaining in Idaho’s home match-up with New Mexico State, sophomore guard Connor Hill drained his biggest shot of the game. With a 3-pointer, Hill drew the Vandals to within a possession of completing a furious second-half comeback from being down 15. 
Unfortunately for Hill the effort would be too late. Idaho lost 71-70 to the Aggies that night, with Hill’s 3 of 5 second half 3-point shooting effort overshadowed with his 0 of 4 first half from beyond the arc.
“As a shooter you can’t stop shooting. If you miss a couple you have to keep shooting because that’s your role on the team,” Hill said. “That one night where I missed four or five in a row I had to come out in the second half and keep working on my shot and being aggressive.”
Hill, reflecting the age-old philosophy of “shooters gotta shoot,” paid-off when his 7 of 9 shooting performance helped Idaho clip its four-game losing streak as Idaho defeated Texas-Arlington 77-64 — Hill put the game to bed with an NBA-range fade-away trey in the face of pressure with 5:26 remaining in the game.
“We got it in his hands when we needed a shot and the right person had it,” junior forward Stephen Madison said.
Hill tends to give Idaho energy when the team needs it in the form of one of the rarest plays in basketball — the four-point play. Hill leads the NCAA with four of them.
Getting so many opportunities for four-point plays comes from the immense amount of attention teams pay to Hill. Rarely is he open coming off picks or screens. Instead, Hill has to continually get shots off in the face of pressure. Sometimes, it’s just the right amount of pressure.
“As a shooter you have to just come off screens and try to create separation,” Hill said. “You’re always looking for your shot when you’re a shooter, just a little bit off separation and you can get your shot off and that’s what I look for, I can just pull it.”
Was he hit hard on each of the four-point plays?
“You have to flop a little bit. I mean, if they hit you just flop like you got called pretty good,” Hill said. “I don’t look for the four-point plays, but if they hit me I’m going to fall over.”
The Post Falls native has filled in the role of starting two-guard relatively well his sophomore season, a season in which he has more than doubled his minutes-per-game from last year. Hill is third on the team in scoring with 11.2 points-per-game, shooting 46 percent from the field.
“It’s just experience (for him),” Madison said. “He’s starting to understand how to just play the game at this level, with this physicality and this speed and just use his advantages and their weaknesses to his ability to get a shot off.”
To keep getting those opportunities to score will be a struggle for Hill. He doesn’t often see open daylight to get shots off.
“I feel like teams lately have been face-guarding me, but other than that you can get separation. You just have to go down there and be crafty with it,” Hill said. “Just a little bit of separation is all I need.”
Idaho coach Don Verlin said Hill getting those long range shots is a part of Idaho’s offense, meaning it’s up to Hill’s teammates to help get those (semi) open looks.
“They definitely face-guard and deny him. You’ve got to be able to get in the way of his defender for just a second. If you give him a second to catch and shoot, he’ll get it off. That’s just our goal,” Madison said.
Sean Kramer can be reached at [email protected]