Vandals falter late in loss at Montana
It's hard to win on the road when you shoot 37 percent from the field. And it's really hard to win a tight game on the road when you make just 39 percent of your free throws. Outside of solid efforts from Connor Hill and Bira Seck, the Vandals shot poorly and faltered down the stretch in a 69-58 loss at Montana on Wednesday night
Idaho, which dropped to 4-6, made just 7 of 18 free throws and struggled after forging a tie at 52-all with under 6 minutes left. Hill scored 24 points, including 19 in the second half, and Seck had 11 points and 13 rebounds. But the rest of the Vandals went 9 of 25 from the floor (25 percent) and had a mere 23 combined points.
“We just didn’t make the plays we needed to -- that was the bottom line tonight,” Idaho coach Don Verlin said. “We tied it up with about six minutes to play, and just can’t finish the job. We get the game how we want it and we don’t finish it like we need to. We miss some easy inside shots. If you’re going to win on the road you can’t shoot (7-for-18) at the free throw line. The bottom line is we didn’t do what we needed to do to finish this basketball game.”
While Idaho struggled shooting, Montana was near-perfect from the free-throw line in the final minutes, going 10 of 12.
Montana makes a return trip to Idaho on Dec. 28. First, the Vandals have three more road games in succession -- Portland State on Saturday; Idaho State in Boise’s CenturyLink Arena on Dec. 20; and CSU Northridge on Dec. 22.