Vandals 1-3 on latest road trip, lose to UM
The road struggles continued for the Vandals as they couldn’t capitalize on an early seven-point lead against the Montana Grizzlies Saturday night in Missoula, Montana.
Amelia C. Warden | Argonaut
Idaho forward Bira Seck rebounds the ball during the game against Northern Colorado Jan. 24 at the Cowan Spectrum in Moscow. The Vandals fell at Montana 70-56 over the weekend.
Montana closed out the first half with a 25-10 run to take an eight-point lead at halftime and never trailed again, ultimately winning the game, 70-56, over Idaho.
Idaho coach Don Verlin said early foul trouble caused problems for the Vandals.
“Montana took it to us, and they were more physical than we were,” Verlin said. “The early foul trouble really hurt us. We were out there with some odd lineups and we weren’t nearly as good as we should have been offensively.”
With the loss, Idaho falls to 9-12 on the season and 4-6 in Big Sky competition. After spending the last three games on the road, the Vandals return home Thursday for a game against Portland State — a team that beat them earlier in the season.
“We turned the ball over way too much tonight,” he said after the game. “A lot of those because I didn’t have very good lineups in there. It’s probably as much my fault, but we were in foul trouble … We just couldn’t get any continuity in this basketball game.”
Senior shooting guard Connor Hill led the Vandals with 15 points on three 3-pointers and 4-of-5 shooting overall. Freshman forward Arkadiy Mkrtychyan continued to provide a lift off the bench as he finished with 11 points and two rebounds.
Montana had four players score in double figures and were led by senior guard Jordan Gregory, who finished with 17 points, seven assists and three rebounds.
Verlin said his team would have been happy with two wins on the three-game road trip. However, with just one win — against Montana State — he said the Vandals need to protect their home court with four of the last eight games played at home.
Idaho is now 1-4 in road games against Big Sky teams and 2-9 overall in road games. While the road hasn’t been too kind to the Vandals, they have taken advantage of their home-court advantage as the team is 7-3 in games played in Moscow.
“We’re not as far away as we think,” Verlin said. “Our goal right now is to win our next game. Portland State coming in, we gotta do everything we can. We got to take care of our home court, we got to get on the road and get a few wins, get ourselves into that conference tournament and make a run like we did last year.”
Korbin McDonald can be reached at [email protected]