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Idaho snags dramatic postseason win

March 18, 2009 9:36 p.m. • 21 comments

It could have been easier. Much easier. But the Vandals will certainly take their 69-67 victory over Drake in the first round of the CollegeInsider.com tournament.

Idaho nearly frittered away a 12-point lead in the closing minutes, but held on for the program’s first postseason win since 1982.

Keep reading for my game story from Memorial Gym.

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By JOSH WRIGHT
Correspondent

MOSCOW, Idaho – It was their first foray into the postseason since 1990, and the Idaho Vandals seemed intent on squeezing every heart-stopping second out of Wednesday night’s game that they could.

Their 12-point lead with 3 minutes left evaporated in a hurry. So did a four-point cushion with under a minute remaining.

But thankfully for the Vandals, the small but rambunctious crowd inside the tight quarters of Memorial Gym was on their side. It was an edge they desperately needed.

Buoyed by 1,502 rowdy fans, Idaho continued its stellar homecourt advantage and held off late-charging Drake 69-67 in the first round of the CollegeInsider.com tournament.

The Vandals (17-15) pocketed their first postseason win since 1982, when the program featured Phil Hopson. This time, it was his son Mac that helped usher UI into the CIT’s quarterfinal round.

“It’s very special to me,” the youger Hopson said. “It’s just so huge I can’t really explain it. I transferred here (from Washington State) to put Idaho on the map.

“I’m just so happy inside. It’s so huge for our program. I just can’t express it.”

After reaching its highest win total since 1993-94, Idaho moves on to face Pacific, which dropped Portland on Wednesday night. The Vandals and Tigers will meet Monday in Stockton, Calif.

Idaho advanced on the strength of perhaps their most balanced effort of the season. Five players reached double figures, and point guard Hopson and Kashif Watson combined for 16 assists.

A Terrence Simmons’ 3 and Brandon Wiley layin extended the Vandals’ cushion to 67-55 at the 3:22 mark. But then the Bulldogs (17-16) staged a gutsy rally.

Aided by three UI turnovers, they went on an 11-0 spurt. Josh Parker’s trey from the right wing sliced Idaho’s lead to 67-66 with 55 ticks left.

After Trevor Morris canned two free throws with 4.3 seconds remaining to make it 69-66, the Vandals opted to foul Drake before it could get off a 3. Yet Hopson put both arms around Craig Stanley and was called for an intentional foul.

Stanley made 1 of 2 foul shots and Josh Young, who had been sensational in the first half, clanged a 3-point try over the long arms of Luciano de Souza at the buzzer.

Afterward, Drake coach Mark Phelps bemoaned Craig Stanley’s errant layup attempt with 4.3 seconds left. Stanley appeared open, but Morris closed quickly to contest the shot. He then corralled the rebound and sank the decisive free throws.

“He would make that shot 99 out of 100 times,” Phelps said of Stanley. “I guess tonight was the 100th.”

Both teams, short on interior presences, traded 3-point blows for much of the night. A total of 57 long-range heaves were released, with Drake draining 10 of 34 attempts.

Young unleashed 14 points in the first half. But with Watson guarding him after the break, he shot 0 of 8 from the floor and made just four second-half free throws.

“I really thought the key to this game was Kashif Watson,” Idaho coach Don Verlin said. “… He locked that kid down, and that’s a really good Missouri Valley player. That was a heck of an effort by Kashif.”

21 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

Colorado_Vandal on March 18 at 11:31 p.m.
I am glad they held on for the win. I was getting quite nervous at the end.

I’ll be out near Stockton on Monday and will be going to the game. Any word on tickets?

It will be good to see them play a game.
Dan on March 19 at 9:40 a.m.
Good game. Got a little too close at the end. I usually don’t see an intentional foul called on a team ahead by three in the closing seconds. It was probably a good call because he essentially gave the kid a bear hug instead of selling it by making an effort to go after the ball.

The atmosphere was great and I was really impressed by the turnout from the community. Memorial Gym is small but it was packed and rockin on a night with students gone for spring break and for a tourney game that many people probably didn’t know existed. I know even some of the players were away on spring break and then received a call that they made a post season tournament. My brother and I really had to look hard to find some seats but once we did we noticed we were sitting close to coach Robb Akey. I was half tempted to yell out a “Hey bubba”.

It definitely was a great experience, especially coming after the night of watching the cougs at Beasley with less than 100 people.
TR on March 19 at 11:10 a.m.
Great win. Hopefully UI doesn’t sit back on their duffs and tries something to keep the coach. It’s not always about the money because Eustachy, John L. Smith, and Chris Tormey left for not much more money, but schools that were dedicated to their programs. An excellence fund has been started and that’s good, but it’s not just about the money.

Take the momentum from this season and try to get Memorial up another 1,500 seats or so (take out that stupid stage) so they can have Christmas break games and games during the jazz festival there.

Buy another wood court to be placed next to the main court in the dome for more practice space. Sorry track and tennis, you’ll have to work around this. That’s the way it goes.

These things, I believe, would help keep Verlin more than just a slightly bigger paycheck.
808Vandal on March 19 at 11:39 a.m.
Great win. Best win since 1982 perhaps? Hopefully they can keep rolling at Pacific. I think the WAC is a tougher conference than the Big West, so I think we can match up pretty well. I wonder if a win would lead to another home game for us.

Regarding the facilities and keeping coach V, I don’t really know what can be done. There are so many options regarding facilities. Expand Memorial, stay in the dome and improve the environment, build a stand-alone facility, and of course all of these depend on what they do with the dome for the football team. Either way, I hope we make every effort to keep coach V. and really work towards improving the facilities.

I’d personally still like to see a 6k seat stand-alone facility that can be used for BB and V-ball. Right now BB gets the support, IMHO, because it has the best chance of producing revenue and being successful. Maybe that changes this year in football, but for now, our focus should be on BB.

Anyone going to the Pacific game on next Monday should take a look at their arena. It would be perfect for Idaho.
TR on March 19 at 2:55 p.m.
Idaho will never have the money for both a new football stadium and hoops arena. Hoops doesn’t make money like football and never will, even when you’re winning. Idaho should build its entire athletic program around these three outdoor football games in Moscow: WSU, BSU, and Montana. Each are 30K games, and at $20-$40 a ticket, that’s a lot of money for a school that nets under $200K in football tickets for an entire season. Even losing UI football makes more money than winning UI hoops — always, and you can check that.

You don’t base your facilities on whose winning, but instead on the financial aspects.

Fix up that dome for hoops and expand Memorial for Christmas break and jazz festival games. Buy an extra court for the dome for practice, tennis and track will have to work around it and no more RV or home and garden shows, sorry this is an athletic facility.

Idaho fans want it all — a new football stadium and a new arena. They can’t afford both. Focus on those near-million dollar football games vs. WSU, BSU, and Montana, which would in turn fund the rest of the athletic dept., which in turn would allow UI to keep Verlin, hire more athletic staff, and get better in the other sports.

Building an expensive hoops arena — which will not sell out in the winter in Moscow — will not expand the athletic dept. Unless you’re Gonzaga with no football, you always use football as your money maker. Why is this lost on the UI?
idahofan34 on March 20 at 12:33 a.m.
Great job by the Vandals in beating a good team from the Missouri Valley Conference. I think we have a good shot against Pacific, but know it will be a major challenge since we’re on the road.

TR, when doing your calculating between football and basketball are you looking at the costs between the two? The reason I ask this is because football is much more expensive to operate than a basketball team. I do realize football brings in more overall revenue, but I know many schools actually make more profit with their basketball teams than with football.

Just building an outdoor stadium also won’t bring in 30,000 fans. There has to be some performance from the teams. I think it could help, but it’s not going to triple attendance. Part of the reason we “sold” so many tickets over at Beasley is because the athletic department was giving them away to anyone who could walk. I remember one game where they gave every WSU student a free ticket, as well a large number of the community in Pullman and Moscow.

I don’t argue that our football stadium does need to expand, but I think 25,000 would work just fine for us. The problem is by replacing the west end without adding a horseshoe or even adding the room for a horeshoe is going to further restrain us for many years unless Spear really is thinking of building a seperate football stadium.
TR on March 20 at 8:40 a.m.
They’re giving away tickets now, not just when they were in Pullman. Let’s do simple math:

6 football games at $20 a ticket at 20,000 a game = $1.2M

15 home basketball games at 3K a game (Idaho’s 30-year average attendance) at $10 a ticket = $450,000.

Indoor football — a horseshoe or not, winning or not — will never sell, ever. When it’s nice in the fall, people don’t want to go to the dome. I went to some November games — apparently what the dome was built for — and they had 8,000. (I was given tickets for those, too.)

Also, WSU students were NOT going to the Idaho games. Enormous myth. I know people who went to WSU and lived in Pullman, Cougar fans wer not going.

Idaho would not automatically get 30K outdoors, I think they could average 23K outdoors, and they’ll only average 13K indoors no matter if you put windows or a horseshoe on the dome. Everyone I know hates the dome and hates indoor football.

Also, UI could get ONE 30K game a year or two depending if you play Montana home and home — which they should do. Idaho needs to build their entire athletic department around getting WSU at home one year, BSU the next, and Montana one of those years. Charge more for the WSU game, say $30 a ticket, at 30K that’s $900,000 for one game, for a team that just travels 8 miles over and brings a ton of fans, and it would renew a rivalry that Idaho and WSU has viciously ruined over the last couple decades.

I’m not sure why UI fans can’t get out of their dome/bad opponents/I-AA ways and start taking athletics seriously and football seriously.

Because Spear finally made a good hire (he got lucky) with Verlin and the guy has had one good season doesn’t mean UI athletics is on the rebound and that they need to build a new hoops arena and ignore the cash cow that is football.

It needs to move outdoors — period. Idaho played 70 plus years of outdoor football. The dome is an abberation built because it was a 70’s fad. It’s no longer the 70’s, put your bell bottoms away. :>)
TR on March 20 at 8:43 a.m.
My simple math is off, that’s $2.4M for football. I probably messed up the hoops numbers, too.
808Vandal on March 20 at 11:47 a.m.
There are a couple of flaws in your thinking, TR. First of all, it is a big assumption that Idaho would consistnetly average 20,000 in an outdoor stadium, or sell 30,000 for bjc or Montana. Another flaw is assuming WSU will even come play at Idaho, outdoor facilities or not. Likely WSU would want a 2 for 1 at least. They have always looked down on Idaho and that won’t change anytime soon. Even if Idaho starts winning. The same thing with Idaho’s home and home with Montana. I doubt that the coach or AD would want to play a road game at a 1-AA stadium. I’m sure Idaho would require a 2 for 1.

When Idaho played at Martin stadium, he had some nice crowds. However, we were comming off a bowl win and a new move to D-1 status. There was a huge marketing push and many tickets were bought in large chungs by various corporations and businesses in the area to help meet the attendance push. Plus, I remember many of thoses games having the end-zone seats blocked off, so it was really only sideline seating. The announced crowds were typically 20-23k, but I was at a couple of games that had less than 20k people. It looked fuller because you couldn’t see all the empty end-zone seats because they were covered up.

What really needs to happen is a BB facility needs to be build that can accomodate the Jazz Fest. That means the music dept should contribute to the building fund since they profit from the Jazz Fest. That means the ability to accomodate approx 8k people with regular fixed and floor seating. probably a building with 6k-7k in seating capacity for BB would fit that need because you could get floor seating and build a removable stage that would go over the seats behind one of the end lines. 2nd, buble an indoor track facility of some sort (tennis is already being done I believe). 3rd, take the roof off the dome. Move the field west approx 30 yards and dig down as planned (add drainage while at it). Add simple bleachers to the east side of the field (you can even keep the planned vip section and hall of fame), add the extra rows the dig down will provide for, and then horseshoe in the west end-zone. Basically the east bleachers would but up against the existing east end-zone wall.

That would provide for all and give acceptable cacilities.
808Vandal on March 20 at 12:18 p.m.
I will not be satisfied until our facilities are on par with the rest of the WAC. That doesn’t mean we need a 45k seat football stadium to rival FSU or UH, but we need to improve our football stadium to make it a better facility. We also need to improve our BB facilities. Attendance wise, we can accomodate in our current configuration, but again quality is lacking.

I know it will be tough, but Idaho needs to find a way to address these issues. Period.
TR on March 20 at 4:06 p.m.
I agree with roof removal, but let’s look at reality: I’ve talked to people at the UI, attended the jazz festival this year, and roof removal is NEVER going to happen. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever. Let’s get that through our heads right now.

Two: I had friends who went to the USU game at Martin announced as 23,500. Both said it was legit. The BSU-UI game in Martin in front of 25,900 was legit. So some were under 20K, big deal. I went to the SJSU game in the dome a couple years ago, it was 5K at best; I went to USU two years ago, 8K at best. In 1947 when Moscow was just a bump in the road, they got to 23,500 in Moscow for the WSU game.

I know people in the WSU athletic department, they want to play UI outdoors in Moscow, but like OSU, will not play in the dome.

Look at your thinking — so what if WSU wanted a 2 for 1: Right now it’s a 100 to ZERO. We’re not getting ANY home games with the Cougs — none!

Idaho fans want it all instead of taking small victories. And yes, the WSU and BSU games would net 30K in Moscow. I guarantee it. Play Montana 1 for 1, who cares if they’re I-AA, it’s a 25,500 game in Missoula and at least a 25K in Moscow. Why are we pi$$ing money away?

Here’s a note to people who think hoops makes money: It doesn’t compared to football, not at Duke or Arizona even. And how are athletic departments run? All together now: Much of their funding is based on FOOTBALL TICKET SALES.

Want to get better at track or tennis? Sell more football tickets. Want to get more staffing, more trainers, marketing people, sports info people? Sell more FOOTBALL tickets. One hundred percent of D-I football programs operate on this mode. The UW president talked about this just two weeks ago.

And since the dome roof is NEVER coming off — people get that through your heads right now — the best option is to start planning for another stadium. I’m totally in favor of bubbles and roof removals, but it’s never, ever happening, neither are horseshoes or dig downs. All we’re getting is windows.

Idaho needs to build its entire athletic department around $1 million dollar home games against WSU and BSU — and yes, WSU would play UI in Moscow, bank on it.

Idaho fans and administrators will sit back hoping a current plan of selling $200,000 a year in football tickets will improve things. It won’t.

Even if an outdoor stadium is 20 years down the road, they need to start planning now. It’s so crucial for long time UI fans and the health of the athletic dept. to get WSU at home in Moscow — I’m just stunned so many UI fans are against this, while so many WSU fans, coaches, and administrators are for it.

WSU has gone to Temple (!), Nevada, San Jose State, Boise State, New Mexico, and various other small venues, they most certainly would go to Moscow for no travel cost to play a D-I outdoors game in front of 30K. I’m just beside myself that UI thinks the Big Sky model of indoor football will work in D-I.