In one swift basket, Northern Arizona’s Quinton Upshur gave his team the lead and killed whatever momentum Idaho had at the time.
The Lumberjacks were down one with just under two minutes remaining when the 6-foot-5-senior shooting guard pulled up from behind the arc and drained a 3-pointer to give his team the lead. Idaho never answered. The basket sparked an 8-0 run and Northern Arizona cruised to a 72-65 victory over the Vandals.
“We gave ourselves a chance to win here against a good Northern Arizona team, but we didn’t get it done,” Idaho coach Don Verlin said. “It’s a frustrating defeat for us … but I saw a lot of good things tonight.”
With the loss, Idaho falls to 11-13 overall and 6-7 in conference competition. The team also drops one spot in the Big Sky standings to seventh place. Saturday, the team will be in Cedar City, Utah, for a game against Southern Utah.
Right from the opening tip, the Vandals struggled to shoot the ball as they started 0-5 from the field. Northern Arizona took advantage and led by as much as 11 points in the first half.
Along with the poor shooting, Verlin said another reason for Idaho’s early struggles was poor effort on the boards. Northern Arizona outrebounded the Vandals 20 to 12 in the first half.
“We just didn’t execute the details of the game,” Verlin said. “In the first half, I just think we didn’t get the effort we needed.”
Down 10 points early in the second half, the Vandals, led by senior shooting guard Connor Hill, rallied back with a 20-7 run and took the lead 51-48 with 11:25 left in the game. Hill scored eight of his 20 points during the run.
Verlin said the team was able to grab defensive rebounds, which led to easy baskets in transition.
“I give credit to my guys, they came out and battled in the second half,” he said. “We were able to get some stops … We worked all week, but we didn’t execute against the press. We went a little too fast, made a couple of bad plays and the momentum of the game changed.”
The Vandals turned the ball over 14 times against Northern Arizona, with five of them coming against the press in the second half.
While they may have played better than prior road games, the Vandals rarely come out on top in games away from Moscow. Idaho is now 2-10 on the road and 1-5 in conference road games.
“That’s kind of been the story of our losses this year — it’s just the little things and that’s what I told them afterwards,” Verlin said. “I congratulated on how hard they played … but we just got to finalize those details. What we got to make sure we do is get ready to go play a good Southern Utah team.”