Out of 34 games played this season by the Idaho men’s basketball team, 26 of those games were decided by 10 points or less, 17 were decided by five points or less and six of those games were decided by just one point. The Vandals were 1-5 in those one-point games. If they had managed to come out on top in those five one-point losses, Idaho would’ve finished 21-13, a record that probably earns them an invite to a postseason tournament.
Theo Lawson | Argonaut
Stephen Madison, right, attempts a block against Utah Valley’s Zach Nelson March 14 in Las Vegas during the WAC Tournament semifinals. Despite a losing record, the Vandals made it all the way to the tournament championship game where they lost to New Mexico State.
The 2013-14 season wasn’t for the faint-hearted as it took fans on a ride comparable to the ones at the Silverwood Theme Park just outside of Couer d’ Alene.
From Stephen Madison hitting a buzzer-beating three against Texas-Pan American to send the game into overtime, ultimately leading to an Idaho win, to Madison dropping a career-high 42 points on Utah Valley, only to lose the game by
one point.
Heading into the season, there was a lot of uncertainty surrounding the team. With the addition of 10 new players, Idaho assistant coach Tim Murphy said expectations were up in the air. First-year guys tend to struggle early on in the season and have a hard time finding their role, he said. It isn’t until mid-season that things start to click for the players.
“We kind of figured it was going to be a struggle early in the year, especially with our schedule,” Murphy said. “We had a lot of games on the road, but we wanted to battle, we wanted to be in games, that was our goal. If we could’ve came around faster, that would have been great.”
Early in the season the Vandals showed glimpses of being a good team, but couldn’t find any sort of consistency, going 6-6 in the first 12 games. After beating in-state rival Idaho State 69-65 on Dec. 20, the Vandals went on to lose eight of their next 10 games.
“Everybody thought the WAC was going to be easy to play in this year,” Murphy said. “Compared to playing Nevada, Utah State and those teams, but it wasn’t. I thought Utah Valley, Seattle U, New Mexico State and everybody else was tremendously well coached and hard to play against.”
The final game of the 2-8 skid came on Feb. 1, versus conference rival, Seattle U. Idaho held a 16-point lead with 14-minutes remaining in the game, which quickly changed, as Seattle went on a 23-2 run and took the lead.
The Vandals battled back to take the lead with 15 seconds left, but after poor decision making by Idaho and a clock malfunction, Seattle was able to reclaim the lead and give Idaho another one-point loss.
“It was just horrible how we lost,” Murphy said. “To not be able to inbound the ball with four seconds to go, and the shot clock problem … the whole game just left a bad taste in everybody’s mouth.”
The game proved to be the turning point in the season, though not all bad came from the loss. In preparation for its next game against conference power New Mexico State, the coaching staff wanted to implement a new game plan and test it out on Seattle.
“Going into the New Mexico State game we had planned, after getting our butts kicked down there, that we were going to run New Mexico State,” Murphy said. “So if we were going to run them, we might as well run Seattle. I think we allowed our guys some freedom … we saw how their minds were freed up. We didn’t get out of the system completely, but we freed up their minds.”
Idaho went on to beat NMSU 73-67, and in turn, sparked the Vandals to finish the season strong.
With the new game plan of upping the tempo, the Vandals had the look of a completely different team. Running three-guard lineups and moving Stephen Madison to the power forward position, not only upped the tempo, but increased scoring as well.
During the losing skid early in the year when the Vandals went 2-8, they only averaged 67.9 points per game. When they changed the game plan and increased the tempo, the difference was night and day. During the 11-game span when it went 8-3, Idaho averaged 78 points per game, increasing its average by more than 10-points.
Idaho was clicking at the right time, and found itself one win away from an automatic birth into the NCAA Tournament. All that stood in its way was conference player of the year Daniel Mullings and his NMSU team in the WAC Championship game. Previously, Idaho had beat Missouri-Kansas City and regular season conference champion Utah Valley to get to the championship game.
Idaho hung tough only for a little bit before NMSU pulled away to win the game 77-55 ending any hope for Idaho to extend its season.
Silverwood has a rollercoaster called the “Aftershock,” it’s a ride that lifts you up very slowly, then quickly sends you into a series of dips, dives, loops and everything in between, but ends with a slow glide into the docking station, leaving you with a mixed bag of emotions. It’s comparable to the latest, but not greatest, season of Vandal basketball. Always thrilling, at the very least.
Korbin McDonald can be reached at [email protected]