It was a strange Saturday night at the Cowan Spectrum. It started with a power outage during pregame warm-ups, forcing the players to warm-up in the dark. Then, three rows in, a section of the bleachers collapsed — but no one was injured. To top it all off, in the final seconds of the game, there was a clock malfunction.
Katy Kithcart | Argonaut
Bira Seck prepares to shoot a free throw in the first half of Idaho’s 58-57 loss to Seattle U Saturday in the Cowan Spectrum. The Vandals surrendered a 16-point lead in the second half.
Oh yeah, there was a basketball game, too.
It was a game in which Stephen Madison seemed like he could do no wrong, leading the Vandals with 25 points. But it was his pass that got stolen in the final seconds of the game that ultimately gave Seattle U the win, 68-67.
“I got the ball and I thought with the bobble of the rebound, there was only a couple of seconds on the clock to advance it,” Madison said. “So I tried to get it to Connor (Hill) and they intercepted it.”
The game looked like it could be a blowout with the Vandals holding a 16-point lead with 14:43 remaining.
It was a 23-2 run by Seattle in the second half that made the difference.
“When things started going the other way, we didn’t have any leadership, our heads were down and we had no togetherness,” Idaho coach Don Verlin said. “We played absolutely un-fundamentally sound basketball for about eight minutes there and let Seattle U back in the game.”
The Vandals held the WAC’s leading scorer, Isiah Umipig, to only 13 points on the day, but his teammates picked up the slack with three other players scoring in double figures.
“We decided not to guard the last little bit, then we let them back in the game and they beat us,” Verlin said. “We didn’t make simple plays.”
The Vandals lacked execution down the stretch. Connor Hill got called for a 5-second violation when he tried to inbound the ball with 8.5 seconds left in the game.
After the violation, Seattle U got the ball back under its own bucket. The Vandals had the inbound play guarded to perfection, leaving Seattle nowhere to pass the ball. Then an inadvertent buzzer went off and Seattle was given a second chance.
“We had the first play guarded perfectly and our clock doesn’t work,” Verlin said. “We knew they were going to run one or two plays and we do a great job at guarding the first one and our clock doesn’t work.”
Seattle scored on a quick layup on its second chance under the rim to take the lead with less than 10 seconds remaining. Idaho had a chance at a game-winning shot, but Seattle’s D’Vonne Pickett stole Madison’s pass to seal the victory for the Redhawks.
Lack of execution hampered the Vandals ability to close out their opponent in the second half.
“Lack of discipline, lack of fundamentals, lack of execution, so I guess if that’s worse, it is,” Verlin said. “There’s an old saying in college basketball, ‘Players got to play.’ You have to execute when the game is on the line and we didn’t do it tonight.”
Losing a rivalry game is tough, but the Vandals will need to get over the loss quickly, because it won’t get any easier when New Mexico State comes to town.
“At some point, this team needs to grow up,” Verlin said. “It’s real simple why we’re getting our butts beat, because we aren’t mature enough to win games.”
Idaho will be hosting the defending WAC Champions Aggies at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Cowan Spectrum.
Korbin McDonald can be reached at [email protected]