The University of Idaho’s ICCU Arena hosted the 277th rivalry match between the Washington State Cougars and the Idaho Vandals on Thursday night. Idaho came into the game with a 1-2 record, whereas WSU had a perfect 3-0 record.
The Cougars have beat the Vandals two years in a row and Idaho looked to break that streak on Nov. 18.
But the first half was not a good indicator that the streak would end. Idaho went four straight minutes without a basket.
In the first half WSU led by as many as 21 points. Idaho had 11 turnovers in contrast to WSU’s two.
Of WSU’s 36 shot attempts — they scored on 58% of their shots. The Vandals scored on 36% of their 25 shot attempts.
Twelve of the Vandals 29 first half points came from beyond the arc. They made four 3-pointers. WSU only made one but still led by 47-29 at halftime. WSU showed off that trademark PAC-12 size: out-rebounding Idaho 19-14 in the first half. The turnovers and lack of control on the boards gave WSU many extra possessions that they capitalized on. WSU’s size in the frontcourt also prevented Idaho from driving to the basket effectively, nearly eliminating the post from Idaho’s offensive gameplan.
The second half wasn’t much better. WSU continued to score more than half their shots from the floor. The Vandals continued to struggle with scoring — as their field goal percentage never reached 40% or above in the second half.
It never got better. The Cougars continued to increase their lead. You could hear and see the air of the arena getting sucked out.
Fans on both sides were heading home early to try and beat the traffic, and WSU’s lead kept growing and growing. The result was the biggest single-game point differential in the history of the UI-WSU rivalry: a 48-point win by the Cougars.
After the game, coach Zac Claus said he thought the Cougars defense was lean.
“Their quickness — it was a really good thing,” Claus said. “They changed up their defenses and did a nice job pressuring the ball and made life a little bit difficult for us and we did not respond well at all.”
The Vandals finished the game with 13 turnovers to the Cougars’ five.
One of the few positives to the game was the performance of freshman forward Tanner Christensen. He played with high energy and was one of the few players to effectively and efficiently attack the Cougars’ interior defense.
“Tanner’s a really good player,” Claus said. “We have missed him sorely over the last few weeks … he just had a run of about three, four weeks where he had some awful luck. It’s so nice to have him back on the floor.”
Christensen’s final stat line was seven points on 2/2 from the field and 3/4 from the free-throw line with two rebounds and two blocks coming off the bench.
Idaho hopes to rebound in their trip to San Juan Capistrano, California, against the Utah Valley Wolverines in the SoCal Challenge. This will take place Nov. 22 at 2:30 p.m.
Live game coverage can be found on Twitter @VandalNation
This article has been updated to clarify that the Battle of the Palouse was played against Washington State University
Teren Kowatsch can be reached at [email protected]
Jeff d
We did not play Washington we played Washington state.