When the final buzzer sounded in Idaho’s 80-73 Senior Day win over Montana State, Marcus Colbert went over to his old high school teammate Connor Hill and congratulated him.
“He just said ‘A heck of a career, I love you’ and I told him I love him back,” Hill said. “We’ve been through a lot together.”
Hill led Idaho with 21 points on 5-of-13 shooting from beyond the arc. His former Post Falls High School teammate Colbert finished with a game-high 26 points, but the Bobcats (8-20, 4-13 Big Sky) couldn’t contain the Vandals (13-14, 8-8).
The Senior Day victory didn’t come easy for seniors Bira Seck, Mike Scott, Hill and the Vandals. Idaho went up 9-3 five minutes into the game, but it was a back-and-forth battle from there and the teams went into halftime tied at 39.
For much of the game, it was a scoring battle between Hill and Colbert. The former teammates each had 17 points before any other player made it to double digits.
“It was a lot of fun,” Hill said of playing his old teammate. “He played very well. We were just going back and forth for a while there — he hit a shot, I hit a shot, he went down and it a shot — kind of back and forth.”
The Bobcats stuck with Idaho despite trailing for the majority of the game. Idaho found itself up by three points with just over a minute remaining. Then, Scott pulled up behind the arc with a defender in his face and made a 3-pointer to give Idaho a 76-70 lead. MSU couldn’t recover.
“That pull up 3-pointer by Mike was coldblooded, but he’s been coldblooded all year,” Hill said. “He’s hit huge shots for us and I’m just thankful the he was the one that made that shot because he deserved it.”
Scott finished the game with 14 points despite only playing 21 minutes due to foul trouble. Freshman Arkadiy Mkrtychyan added 11 points off the bench for the Vandals in the post.
The win was Idaho’s seventh consecutive Senior Day win.
“It’s always nice to finish with a win, especially on Senior Night,” Idaho coach Don Verlin said. “We’ve been very fortunate since I’ve been here to do that every time, so it was a good feeling for Connor and Mike and Bira.”
Despite two straight home wins, Idaho still sits at seventh place in the conference standings and hasn’t clinched a spot in the postseason tournament. The Vandals hit the road for the final two games of the regular season Thursday at Weber State and Saturday at Idaho State.
Scott said the home wins give Idaho confidence going into the final two games.
“We know we could sit real nice right now with two home wins, but Monday it’s back to work,” he said.
Stephan Wiebe can be reached at [email protected]