Coming off a narrow 84-81 victory against South Dakota State on Saturday, the Idaho Vandals men’s basketball team traveled nearly 2,000 miles to South Bend, Indiana, to battle the 7-3 Notre Dame Fighting Irish, a battle that the Irish came out on top pulling away in the second half and defeating the Vandals 80-65 moving the Vandals to 6-4.
As soon as the game started, the Irish knew right away that the Vandals were not going to go down easily, as sophomore star Kolton Mitchell broke free and scored a layup for the first points of the game. Soon after this, Idaho began to show cracks in their armor and let Notre Dame answer back quickly.
After the Irish drained a few key three-pointers, the Vandals would find themselves in a hole as they trailed midway through the first half 24-16. Idaho started slowly crawling back, especially through the help of senior guard Biko Johnson, who nailed a couple of three pointers and freshman forward Jackson Rasmussen, who consistently made basket after basket to ultimately tie it at half 33-33.
Coming out of the locker room for the second half, the Vandals planned to build on their hot streak, but the Irish had other plans as they took the lead by scoring the first basket of the second half. The Irish started to pull away early, and were up by double digits halfway through the second half.
Notre Dame didn’t let go of the gas though and began to control the rest of the game. Key players for the Irish, such as freshman guard Jalen Haralson, scored a team high 20 points, while teammate graduate forward Carson Towt was right behind him at 19. Towt, who is a transfer from Northern Arizona, has had big games against the Vandals in the past and had another one to help prevail the Irish to victory.
To add more fuel to the fire, sophomore guard Cole Certa and unior guard Braeden Shrewsberry both were efficient on the three-point line, scoring a combined 7-11 three pointers.
With all those stars on the court for Notre Dame, there was no way the Vandals’ defense could keep up as the game slowly fell apart. On the offensive side of the ball for the Vandals, Johnson ended the night with a team high 19 points, and Rasmussen ended with 16.
Johnson’s and Rasmussen’s great performance didn’t matter in the end though as the Irish took care of Idaho and left the Vandals a bitter taste of defeat on their six hour flight back home.
The Vandals will return home and return to Idaho Central Credit Union Arena as they take on a much Evergreen State on Sunday, Dec. 14, at 2 p.m.