Revenge is a dish best served cold and Vandal women’s basketball would like nothing more than to serve it up to the Spartans.
San Jose State has beaten Idaho in California for two consecutive years and the Vandals will attempt to break the streak at 8:30 p.m. Saturday in the last game of a two-game road trip.
The Vandals are struggling with the monkey of an eight-game losing-streak on their backs. Sophomore Alyssa Charlston said the team needs to step up if the season is to be salvaged.
“We need to show that we’re an adequate team in the conference,” Charlston said. “…They may be towards the bottom of the conference too, be we need to start working our way up now.”
The Spartans entered the week in fifth place in the WAC and are off to their best start since the 2006-2007 season, while the Vandals are sitting in last place.
Idaho coach Jon Newlee said the Spartans have started to turn the corner this year.
“They’re playing well. They have a new coach and a couple of players who have really stepped up for them,” Newlee said. “…Hopefully we’ll come out of the Hawaii game healthy and ready to go, and we’ll get refocused on that day in between and be ready for the Spartans. I think we’ll just go in with the mindset that this is a road game we want to win.”
The Spartans recently broke a 44 road-game losing streak to conference opponents when they beat Nevada 86-79 Jan. 28.
“I saw they snapped their 44-game road losing streak recently,” Newlee said. “Talk about streaks — that was a streak. We’ll see how it goes.”
San Jose State has been a hard place for Idaho to play in recent years, but Idaho still owns a 12-10 all-time series record over the Spartans. Charlston said the team wants revenge for last season’s loss.
“I’m excited to go out there and play as hard as we possibly can against San Jose,” Charlston said. “It’s a team that we can’t take for granted because we lost there, at their place the last two years, so we definitely want to get a win there.”
The Spartans are led by freshman guard Ta’Rea Cunnigan, the WAC’s sixth leading scorer, averaging 15.4 points per game. She is the only freshman in the top 10 scorers in the conference. On the other side Charlston leads Idaho with 14.6 points and 8.1 rebounds per game.
Newlee said Charlston has stepped up to the leadership role this season, both vocally and through her performance.
“Without a doubt she is the leader of this basketball team as a sophomore. She’s vocal, she brings it every day in practice,” Newlee said. “…She knows what we want as coaches and without a doubt she is the leader of the basketball team.”
While the Vandals haven’t been able to break through for a conference win, Newlee said he’s seen improvement.
“It’s a slow process and I say it’s a lot slower than I want it to be, but on the same token it’s going in the right direction,” Newlee said.