Nevada 3s Too Much For Idaho After Overcoming Sluggish Start, Vandals Bow To Division Leaders

Trite as it may sound, the final score of the Big West Conference game between Idaho and Nevada didn’t exactly reflect how close the game was.

The Vandals, mired at the bottom of the Eastern Division, fell behind early but rallied to push the Wolf Pack to the limit before a late-game flurry gave Nevada a 78-67 victory before a rowdy crowd of 7,130 in Lawlor Events Center.

Idaho fell to 12-16 overall and 4-10 in the Big West while Nevada maintained its share of the division lead with a 17-7, 11-3 mark.

“I think it shows a lot about the character of this team,” coach Kermit Davis said. “On the road, with no tournament aspirations, down 21-7 … some teams would have pitched it in.”

The Vandals didn’t and it was a brief but inspirational chat with Davis that sent them on a run that led to a halftime deficit of just one, 33-32.

“Coach told us what we needed to do to win,” said center Jason Jackman, who led Idaho with 24 points and five rebounds. “That motivated us. We can play with the best in the league when we do what we’re supposed to do.”

Saturday night, doing what they were supposed to do was not shooting from 3-point range and playing a deliberate pace to force the Wolf Pack to maintain a defensive stance for the full 35 seconds.

And once they wound the shot clock down to the final ticks, they drove in for layups or a trip to the free-throw line.

Idaho’s undoing was Nevada’s pinpoint accuracy from 3-point range. With Richard Brown hitting 4 of 5, the Wolf Pack hit 52.6 percent on their long-range shots.

The Wolf Pack drilled the most crucial of those 3s down the stretch.

With Idaho trailing by only five points, 63-58, Paul Culbertson hit one to stretch the lead to eight. Robert Scott answered with a jumper to cut the lead to 66-60 before Brown and Culbertson sandwiched one field goal and one 3-pointer around another Scott jumper for the surge that put the game out of reach.