The Vandals may have solved the second half bug, but even that wasn’t enough to overcome Palouse rival Washington State in a 64-55 loss Wednesday on Friel Court at Beasley Coliseum.
Ilya Pinchuk | Courtesy
Starting point guard Mike McChristian dishes the ball off while Royce Woolridge defends during Idaho and Washington State’s rivalry game Wednesday in Pullman. The Cougars won their 10th straight game against Idaho and fourth straight during the Don Verlin era.
Including Wednesday’s contest, the teams have met a total of 268 times, but under Don Verlin, the Vandals (1-4) have yet to best the Cougars (4-3), despite a number of narrow losses.
The nine-point defeat Wednesday was no exception, and looked to have the makings of last season’s thriller, when former Cougar Reggie Moore sunk Idaho with a buzzer beater.
WSU needed no such magic this time around and it was 6-foot-10-inch forward D.J. Shelton, who had Cougar students on their feet when the sophomore transfer drained a three-pointer as the shot clock wound down.
Shelton’s trey extended the Cougar lead to five points, after Idaho scrapped together a 13-2 run to make it a two-point game with three minutes remaining in the second half.
“I didn’t think D.J. Shelton could beat us from three but that was obviously a huge shot with about three to go, he hit a big shot you’ve got to give them credit,” Verlin said. “We had a pretty good defensive effort and we were really good until the last five minutes of the game and then they made the plays.”
A much-better second half effort from the visitors was still in effect though, especially after Idaho surrendered a 47-41 lead against New Mexico at The Pit after he reportedly returned one week ago.
The Vandals, once again, were unable to use guard Antwan Scott, who was unavailable after it had been reported that he had returned to the squad following a four-week stint that saw him return to his home state of Texas for a family illness.
Verlin said Scott’s status on the team has yet to be determined.
More influential than the absence of Scott, may have been the presence of 2011-12 Pac-12 leading scorer Brock Motum, who didn’t shy away from the heavily-anticipated match-up with Kyle Barone, Idaho’s preseason first team All-WAC center.
Motum’s game-high 26 points came on 11 of 20 shooting, while the Brisbane, Australia, native pulled down an additional nine rebounds.
Not expecting a double team, Motum was content with the one-on-one with Barone.
“I think I was comfortable playing like that and if they did double team I was comfortable like that too, because once there’s two guards on one player it leaves another open so I’m happy that our guards are proven and can stroke it from the perimeter,” Motum said.
For the third time this season, Ken Bone’s squad played without sophomore guard DaVonte Lacy, who suffered a knee injury against Kansas two weeks ago. To Idaho’s dismay, Dexter Kernich-Drew was every bit as good as Lacy might’ve been. The versatile Kernich-Drew shot an efficient 5 of 7 from the field, tallying 15 points while contributing four rebounds and four assists.
“We’ve been excited about Dexter from the get-go… He’s always had some great athleticism,” Bone said. “He’s quick, he’s fast probably our best athlete on the team and he can shoot.”
Three Vandals concluded in double figures, headed by forward Stephen Madison who put up a team-high 13. Motum’s physical presence on Barone held the Idaho senior to a season-low 11 points.
Both Idaho and WSU shot less than 50 percent from the field, and though Idaho was just 1 of 6 from three-point range in the first half, its shooters remained patient and shooting 4 of 10 from three in the second half was the primary factor in the Vandals’ comeback attempt.
“We’ve got good shooters, I thought we did a better job executing our offense in the second half, got Connor Hill a few looks, has Stephen Madison going a little bit, that was really the difference…” Verlin said.
Idaho will take the floor of the Cowan Spectrum for the first time this season Saturday, when they host the UC Davis Aggies.
Theo Lawson can be reached at [email protected]
