Threes were flying almost before the seats were filled. Idaho buried nine triples in the first eight minutes and never let Eastern Oregon catch its breath, rolling to a 97-68 win and improving to 3-2 behind one of its most explosive shooting nights of the early season.
It wasn’t the cleanest 40 minutes Idaho has played this season, but it may have been one of the most revealing. Behind another breakout performance in the ICCU Arena from true freshman forward Jackson Rasmussen and a barrage of early three-pointers, the Vandals rolled past their NAIA opponent before heading down to Boise for the Holiday Hoops tournament.
Rasmussen, making just his second career start at the ICCU Arena, looked nothing like a newcomer. He scored 22 points on nine for 12 shooting, finishing through contact and cutting into lanes with confidence.
“He’s just an animal,” Kolton Mitchell said. “The steadiness is what impresses me the most. He doesn’t get too high or too low. You get the same guy all the time.”
In a matchup that featured flurries of three-pointers, Idaho ultimately won the game where head coach Alex Pribble most wanted them to: on the interior and in defensive adjustments.
“We need to continue to defend; That’s who we have to be,” Pribble said. “The identity of this team is changing a little bit. Last year if we scored the ball well, we could beat anybody. This year we need to grind out wins with defending and rebounding.”
Both teams came out firing from deep, combining for 34 three-point attempts in the first half alone. Idaho used the early perimeter explosion to jump ahead while Eastern Oregon, a team that “shoots the ball at a really high clip,” as Pribble noted, countered with difficult makes of its own.
Biko Johnson, Trevon Blassingame, Miles Klapper and Mitchell each hit three triples, helping Idaho finish 13-31 from beyond the arc.
Mitchell was at the center of one of the more entertaining sequences of the game. Eastern Oregon guard Logan Orchard, a former Coeur d’Alene High School standout and someone Mitchell is very familiar with on and off the court, drilled an NBA-range three. Mitchell answered with a deep triple of his own, then picked Orchard’s pocket on the next possession and hit another.
“I’ve played against a lot of those kids growing up, so I knew how tough this game was going to be,” Mitchell said. “Logan’s a great kid. I’ve had a lot of good battles with him.”
Mitchell finished with 14 points and four assists, and he also crossed the 500-point career mark.
“It’s a nice thing to have,” he said, “But we’re here to win a championship too.”
While Idaho led 53-41 at halftime, the Vandals weren’t satisfied with their defensive execution. Eastern Oregon had six players score at least five points in the first half, and the Mountaineers’ pace-and-space offense created more open looks than Pribble wanted to concede.
“Eastern Oregon deserves a lot of credit,” Pribble said. “They gave Eastern Washington a good run, so we knew this was going to be a big challenge.”
After being outrebounded in the first half, the message at halftime was simple: clean up the glass.
“It’s always a priority,” Pribble said. “It was definitely a major thing we talked about.”
The Vandals held the Mountaineers to just one made three-pointer on six attempts in the second half, which was a dramatic turnaround after surrendering nine makes in the first.
“I think the second-half response was a really good sign for our guys,” Pribble said. “They buckled down defensively.”
That defensive pressure created offense. Idaho forced 23 points off turnovers and pushed the pace with numbers, steadily widening the gap.
Despite the flurry of threes on both sides, Idaho ultimately buried Eastern Oregon with interior scoring. The Vandals controlled paint points 44-20 and got meaningful contributions across the lineup.
Klapper continued his role as Idaho’s reliable spark off the bench, scoring 15 points with four rebounds.
Idaho’s offensive balance of 17 assists on 36 made field goals produced one of the team’s more fluid showings of the young season. Pribble credited the decision-making.
“We shoot the ball at a high clip too, so it’s really about making the right decisions,” he said. “I thought we had a good balance tonight.”
For Pribble, the performance wasn’t perfect.
“We definitely have a long way to go,” he said. “This wasn’t 40 minutes of good basketball. We need to play complete games; we need to be consistent. My job as a coach is to hold a championship standard.”
Idaho moved to 3-2 and will head to Boise next for the Holiday Hoops Tournament, where the Vandals face California State University Northridge on Wednesday, Nov. 26, at 6 p.m.