It was all Idaho Thursday as the Vandal women’s basketball team snapped a two-game losing streak by beating Carroll College 63-40.
The Vandals, led by sophomore Alyssa Charlston’s career-high 22 points, never trailed and dominated from start to finish over the NAIA Fighting Saints, thanks in part to some tough-nosed defense. Charlston said it was a good win, especially coming off Sunday’s close loss to Colorado.
“We wanted to come off of Colorado and improve, and I think we did that in stretches,” Charlston said. “We’re still building. We’re a young team.”
After exchanging the first two baskets of the game the Vandals went on a 13-0 run to take a commanding lead. The Vandals’ defense was in the Fighting Saints face for most of the first half and they struggled to get anything going offensively, but toward the end of the half Carroll came alive and went on a run of its own. They pulled within seven to 24-14, but the Vandals countered with a run of their own that was capped off by a buzzer-beating 3-pointer from Alyssa Charlston to take a 37-22 lead into the locker-room. Idaho coach Jon Newlee said he was happy with parts of the game but knows there are things to work on.
“I liked our start,” Newlee said. “We were all over them and then we let off the gas and I told them you can’t afford to do that against anybody. You can’t afford stretches like we had tonight, but other than that I thought it was good.”
The Vandals came out of the locker room firing on all cylinders. They established a commanding lead and never relinquished it, cruising to the victory.
The Idaho defense has improved in recent weeks. The Vandals came into the night leading the WAC in opponent shooting percentage and third in the WAC in points given up per game. The defense continued to shine against Carroll causing 14 turnovers and limiting the Fighting Saints to just 40 points — the fewest Idaho has given up all season. Only 18 of those points came in the second half.
“I thought we did a really good job defensively, besides putting them at the foul line,” Newlee said. “It’s the secondary stuff we got to stop, but I was really happy with the defense tonight.”
Turnovers, which have been a problem for the Vandals this season, showed up again in this one. The Vandals showed improvement in the past couple games, but turned the ball over 17 times against Carroll.
“I thought we played well in stretches and horribly in others,” Newlee said. “Offensively we didn’t take care of the basketball very well and we gave up way too many offensive boards.”
The Vandals will stay at home for two more games, against UC-Riverside Thursday and then Wyoming t