The force was not on Idaho’s side on Thursday night as the Vandals fell 75-60 to Northern Arizona on Star Wars night.
Outside of the 100 Vandal-branded lightsabers, the only thing lighting up the court was NAU’s Trent McLaughlin. The junior guard led all scorers with 25 points while also adding four assists and three rebounds to the stat line. He shot 9-for-13 overall, 4-for-6 from three and 3-for-3 from the free-throw line.
For Idaho, it was junior forward Juice Mims trying to get the Vandals back on the right track. He put up 15 points on 6-for-11 shooting while also blocking five shots, pulling down five rebounds and racking up three steals.
Despite Mims being the only player to reach double digits by halftime, Idaho kept it close during the first 20 minutes. It was 36-35 with 23 seconds left in the half in favor of the Vandals, but McLaughlin heaved up a buzzer-beater three to give NAU momentum going into the locker room.
That momentum proved to be huge for the Lumberjacks as a whole as they went from one scorer in double figures to four by the end of the game.
McLaughlin only put up seven more points after halftime, but sophomore guard Oakland Fort really heated up. He finished the game with 14 points and 10 rebounds to put up the only double-double for either team.
While Fort heated up, the Vandals as a whole cooled off. Neither junior guard Quinn Denker, nor sophomore guard Trevon Blassingame, scored after halftime. In total, Idaho’s starters put up 11 points in the final 20 minutes of play.
“In that second half, when things weren’t going our way, our guys (had) a tendency to separate,” Head Coach Alex Pribble said during a press conference. “They kind of go away from the game plan, go away from some of the things that we’re trying to instill in them about making each other better on the offensive end.”
Before Pribble talked about the issues in the second half, redshirt freshman forward Tyler Linhardt mentioned the same problem.
“We’re finding success in the first half, but as a team, we need to find a way to finish some games and right now we’re just in the process of studying that,” he said. “I feel like we’re more than capable of doing that, (but) right now, we’re just not putting a full 40 minutes together.”
Idaho will return to ICCU Arena on Saturday, Jan. 27, to take on Northern Colorado, the third-best team in the Big Sky, at 2 p.m. It will be Tribal Nations Night, which tends to bring in a larger home crowd than most games.
“The energy is great,” Pribble said when asked about the larger crowds. “When we do get that run going in the first half, there’s great energy in ICCU, and I still have that vision of what this is going to look like when we get it rolling.”
James Taurman-Aldrich can be reached at [email protected] or on X @jamesaldrich25