Vandal Men look confident going into a new decade

As the holiday break comes to an end, the Vandal’s finished with a record of 1-4 during the holiday break with their only win being against Portland State. Three out of the four losses were in close game situations, and the Vandals came up barely short.

The Vandals squared off against Idaho State and Weber State, where they lost both games by a combined score of three points on the road. They faced off at home against Montana State, and fell short by three points. Senior guard Trevon Allen led the way for the Vandals averaging 22 points per game.

“I feel like the biggest thing that’s helped us win one of our conference games is finding the good group to finish out the game and stay solid with that group with a good flow,” Allen said. “We tend to switch up and break up our flow, and that’s something we have to work on as a team.”

The Vandals look to face off against Eastern Washington right when the semester starts, and they will look to clinch their second conference win and their sixth win of the regular season against their conference rivals.

Eastern Washington and Idaho are both coming into the game with a one game losing streak and a win against Portland State. Interim head coach Zac Claus believes how they practice will determine the outcome of the game.

“The correlation between practicing well during the week and then being able to play Thursday, Saturday or Monday or whatever the day may be,” Claus said. “We believe in that correlation that if we practice great, that it’s going to translate into the game.”

Halfway through the season and the Vandals are 5-10 and 1-3 in conference play. The Vandals are 4-3 at home and winless on the road. They will have to win some games on the road if they want to turn things around this season.

“I’m pretty positive about the season, watching a lot of other teams play on our weeks we’ve had off, it’s a positive outlook. I mean we’re right where we need to be, and I feel like we should already be at that point,” Allen said. “To lose games by two, three, or by one point is tough but like I said it gives us confidence if we can make corrections now.”

With the increase of confidence and improvement made by the Vandals, junior guard Chance Garvin is excited for the rest of the season moving forward.

“The improvement we have already shown throughout the first half of the season, and we still have a whole half of the season to go,” Garvin said. “If we can clean the little stuff up then we will be pretty hard to beat.”

Armin Mesnovic can be reached at arg-sports.uidaho.edu.