Idaho coach Don Verlin may want to think about trademarking the term ‘heartbreak’, because it may be best way to describe this Idaho team.
Or if you’re New Mexico State guard Daniel Mullings then ‘slayer of Vandals’ may be a good trademark term. He only scored seven points Thursday night in his teams’ 76-74 triumph over Idaho, but for the second time this year it was his game-winning free throws after a terrible Idaho miscue late which gave the Aggies the notch in the win column.
With the score tied at 74 and 14 seconds remaining in the game, Idaho guard Mike McChristian dribbled the ball off his foot and out of bounds to give the ball back to the Aggies. Mullings then sank the deciding free throws following a foul.
“What another tough way to not get another one tonight,” Verlin said. “There’s no one that hurts more in the guys in the locker room. That’s two games in a row where you give them the game. That’s a tough one.”
Indeed it was reminiscent of Idaho’s 71-70 loss to New Mexico State at the Cowan Spectrum, when former Idaho forward Marcus Bell sent Mullings to the free throw line on an inbounds play with the score tied at 70 and under 10 seconds remaining in the game.
“It’s a tough ending, you have the ball the score tied. You’re trying to execute your delay. I made a critical error, we only had one timeout, those things happen but they can’t happen,” Verlin said.
The situation he is referring to is Idaho using its final timeout with 2:58 remaining in the game, when Verlin believed two remained. It resulted in Idaho not being able to draw a play out of a timeout on the late turnover which resulted in the turnover.
The loss drops Idaho to 5-7 in conference play, but aided by losses from San Jose State and Texas-San Antonio the Vandals still retain possession of 6th place. A top six finish means Idaho avoids the first round of the conference tournament.
Thursday night was the second consecutive night in which Verlin rolled out a starting line-up consisting of all his seniors, which meant Stephen Madison came off the bench again. Madison scored nine points on the night but hit two big 3-point shots in the second half.
Verlin didn’t say post-game whether or not he would insert Madison back in the starting line-up.
Kyle Barone had quite the battle down low with New Mexico State’s 7-foot-6 monster center Sim Bhullar. Barone ended up with 26 points, while Bhullar had 20 on perfect 8-of-8 shooting.
As Verlin alluded to following Idaho’s win over San Jose State last Saturday while the Vandals may have plugged certain holes, (turnovers, etc.) other gaping holes are opening up. Idaho turned the ball over less and scored more off of turnovers, but allowed New Mexico State to shoot 53-percent from the field. Idaho was also held to only 14 points in the paint, thanks to Bhullar forcing Barone in to many looks taken away from the basket.
Idaho will be back at it again on Saturday to face a hot Denver team which has won 10 of its last 11. The Pioneers are 10-2 in WAC play.
Here is more from Verlin’s post game on the Vandal Radio Network
On the execution of the game plan:
“I thought the keys to the game going in, we had to compete on the boards. They do outrebound us by four, the shots are within two. But we win the free throw battle, is something we talked a lot about it. You got to give Kevin Aronis credit. But you can say, why didn’t you go out and guard him a little harder? Keeping our defense back in we were able to not let him drive to the basket (was what we wanted him to do).”
On the play of Kyle Barone, Stephen Madison and Mike McChristian
“He did a great job, executed our game plan. Was able to make some face up jumpers, he got fouled a few times. It was nice to see Madison play a bit better in the second half, made a couple three balls. And you know Mike McChristian played a solid game, him and Stephen had a couple unforced turnovers, that’s been the thing biting us in the tail all year long.”
“It’s frustrating, I thought some of our turnovers were unforced. Just random stuff. That’s a tough way to lose, but again, I judge success a lot of times, wins and losses. But you gotta go afterwards and say did you play as hard as you could. We gave our chance to win on the road.”