The body language was hardly becoming of the conference’s most dominant team. Visibly frustrated on the court, it was easy to see how tense the Vandal women’s basketball team was. The game was over at halftime — a situation Idaho was well used to but usually on the winning side of.
At 10-0 in Western Athletic Conference play, Idaho had pillaged its opponents by an average of 23.8 points per game. Cal State-Bakersfield turned that around during a Thursday visit to the Cowan Spectrum. A 39-24 halftime deficit turned into a 69-50 loss. Stunned, Idaho walked off the court with its first loss in 11 WAC games.
It might have been the best thing that could ever happened to the Vandals, whose ultimate goal is repeating as WAC Tournament champions next month in Las Vegas.
Undefeated no more, the pressure was wearing off, Idaho coach Jon Newlee said. Following its bounce-back 69-61 win over Utah Valley on Saturday, Newlee likened it to a pressure valve and said they’ve loosened it halfway, at least.
“The perfect record was a heavy thing on them,” he said. “The regular season championship is great and all, it’s a tight race, we can’t look too far ahead.”
Some pressure comes from what the team has to do in Las Vegas during the WAC Tournament. The only way to make a repeat trip to the NCAA Tournament would be to win the conference tournament again. Had the team been 16-0, Newlee isn’t sure his team would’ve been able to get out of the locker room without being petrified.
“Perfect teams always lose in their conference tournaments, there was that talk from the team, I’m like ‘Come on,'” Newlee said. “We just got to focus in like the end of last year and know that everyone is trying to knock us off.”
One former WAC coach might side with the players on that line of thought, though. Former Fresno State coach Adrian Wiggins led the Bulldogs in 2009-2010 when they cruised through the WAC at 16-0, the last team to go unscathed in the conference. What that team didn’t do was win the conference tournament, getting upended by a Louisiana Tech team that finished 11-5 in WAC play.
“There’s always such a thing in basketball as a great time to lose, that’s what hurt us,” Wiggins said.
Two years later Wiggins coached a Fresno State team that slipped up once in conference play only to go on to win every game until the NCAA Tournament, which turned into a 61-56 loss to No. 5 seeded Georgetown in 2012.
The difference, he feels, was the slip up he had mid-season that re-focused his team.
“I feel like it was a helpful loss, and we kind of rolled through the conference tournament. I was proud of our team for that,” Wiggins said. “There definitely is a thing as a good loss in basketball, I believe.”
The smiles were back on the faces of Idaho players following its latest win, despite the fact it was only by eight points against a one-win WAC team in Utah Valley.
To them, that didn’t matter. It was a preview of what may come next month in Las Vegas, when it matters the absolute most. To them, the focus is back.
“That’s a preview of Las Vegas right there,” Newlee said. “Everybody is bringing it every night and that’s what’s got to happen.”
Sean Kramer can be reached at [email protected]