Plenty at stake this week for Vandals
Idaho's best win this season came at home over Utah State. That much is clear. But the Vandals' second-best win, at least in the WAC, might have been eking past Nevada in Cowan Spectrum. Now the third-place Wolf Pack and the conference-leading Aggies get the Vandals at home this week in two critical games.
Read on for more about the matchups -- as well as thoughts from coach Don Verlin.
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Verlin reminded the media Tuesday of something he says every year: "The WAC title always goes through Nevada." UNR has no chance at first place this year, but it figures prominently in the race for the all-important second, third and fourth seeds in the WAC tournament.
If the Vandals win Thursday in Reno, they will hold the tiebreaker over Nevada. Further tiebreakers, depending on how the last two weeks unfold, get messy after that. But Thursday's game will have a huge impact in determining which teams get the first-round bye in the conference tourney. Said Verlin, "The Nevada game is obviously the big game. ... As far as seeding, (it) is a huge game."
Perhaps Verlin said that knowing the UNR game is much more of a toss-up than Saturday's tilt at Utah State. The Aggies haven't lost a conference home game since March 2007 and they'll be celebrating senior night. But if UI can get a win going into Saturday, the road trip has to be considered a success regardless of what happens in Logan.
"Nevada’s lost only one (conference game) at home and Utah State hasn’t lost any (at home)," Verlin said. "We’re just going to go play and see what happens at the end of the week. You’d much rather be a three (seed) or four than a five, that’s for sure."
After practice Monday -- during which starting forward Luiz Toledo left with what appeared to be a minor shoulder injury -- Verlin spoke of Nevada's offense and the keys for Idaho.
"The key always at Nevada is you’ve got to stop them in transition. They’re second in the conference in scoring — just a few percentage points behind New Mexico State. And you’ve got to slow them down in transition. No. 2 is they lead in the conference in 3-point makes. They shoot the most but they also make the most, just under seven a game. We’ve got to do a good job guarding the 3-point line. And probably the key for us is we’ve got to take care of the basketball. We’re going to face a lot of pressure in that game, I think. And we’ve got to do a good job taking care of our ball. We can’t do like we did at New Mexico State or Boise and have 19 and 22 turnovers and expect to win. We’ve got to have a 12- or 13-turnover game. It’s just got to happen."
About the pesky turnover issue, I asked Verlin what can be done from a coaching perspective to curb the mistakes. He pointed to court awareness and executing better. "That’s one of those hard ones. You emphasize it. You put your guys in areas not to turn it over and you’re execution has to be better. If you know exactly where you’re going and what you’re doing, then you don’t turn it over quite as much."
The Vandals (15-11, 7-6) have won three of four going into the big road trip. The improved play has followed a four-game losing streak ... which followed a six-game winning streak. Asked if the team is playing at its highest level in February, Verlin said, "I hope so. I mean that’s what you always hope. You don’t if you’re going to stay healthy or not, but yeah, I think we’re peaking in February. Guys seem to know their roles. They’re playing hard. Now it’s time to play. We play all year to get to February and now it’s time to prove it."
Follow my updates on Idaho athletics on Twitter at @SR_JoshWright.