If Don Verlin and the Idaho men’s basketball team is waiting for the WAC Tournament to assert itself as one of the top contenders in the conference, well played Mr. Verlin.
If the team is simply too immature and inexperienced to turn second half leads into victories, there may need to be a change of scenery come next season.
Verlin would have been hard-pressed to find three players to replace Deremy Geiger, Landon Tatum and Djim Bandoumel.
But perhaps he didn’t need to, with the emergence of Stephen Madison as a leading scorer, the return of an All-WAC center in Kyle Barone and a constantly improving 3-point shooter in Connor Hill.
He needed a few role players who didn’t necessarily need to score Geiger’s 13 points-per-game or dish out Tatum’s five assists-per-game. Okay, at this point in the season, Bandoumel’s presence in the paint might be ideal, but even that isn’t mandatory for this team to come out on top of the close ones.
Struggling to find its groove in a confusing Western Athletic Conference, Idaho may not want to revisit the past two weeks, which saw the Vandals go 1-4 in the five games that preceded a Cowan Spectrum visit from Texas State.
But with this week’s home stand closing out the first half of conference play, reliving what could have been may be essential for a 7-10 team that may as well be 10-7.
Those last four conference losses have a few things in common. They were all against one of the conference’s top four teams, which combined have only lost five conference games.
Something that was more evident in the games and has been apparent all season has been Idaho’s tendency to squander late leads. Take away the last five minutes of three of those losses and Idaho’s conference record is 6-1.
If Marcus Bell doesn’t foul Daniel Mullings in the waning seconds of the New Mexico State loss and Idaho is victorious in overtime, the Vandals are a perfect 7-0.
This theme of losing a grip on late leads certainly didn’t surface in conference play, though.
In its second regular season game, Idaho led Montana by one point with five minutes remaining and had led by as many as 15 midway through the second half. The Griz utilized a 10-0 run to claw their way back into the game and took their decisive lead with 4:12 to go.
As a matter of fact, in nine of their ten losses Idaho has either led in the second half or trailed by no more than two points.
This concept was especially prevalent in an Albuquerque heartbreaker, which saw the Vandals witness a six-point second-half lead wash away deep in The Pit, home to now No. 15 New Mexico. Idaho led with 14:14 to play, but the Lobos won out by a score of 73-58.
The examples are a plenty, while the victories are not.
Questionable decisions in fourth-quarter situations have doomed an Idaho team that especially struggles when its veteran leaders aren’t producing.
The first-year starters have given into the crunch-time pressure, the bench rookies have made their own mistakes and Barone, Madison and Hill have been relied upon too much late in games.
At La. Tech, Idaho committed four turnovers in the final one and a half minutes, something that didn’t help the Vandals’ WAC-low turnover margin of -5.82.
This team has shown consistency in stretches and the ability to hang with, and nearly upset the conference’s elite teams. With the bottom three teams having combined for just one win, while considering that Idaho has beaten both the fifth and sixth-place teams on the road, it’s assumed that the Vandals will finish within the top six and secure a first-round bye in the conference tournament.
That bye will be crucial for the Idaho team that could, and should be more disciplined come spring break, when tournament action begins.
This team is far from having the stamina or focus to pull out three consecutive tournament wins, but maybe, just maybe, scraping out a few nail biters will give them the confidence necessary to remain competitive in late second half scenarios.
If that theme translates to the tournament, anything could happen.
Just ask La. Tech.
Theo Lawson can be reached at [email protected]