Return to the plan

Do not panic. Temporarily avert your eyes from the Big West Conference men’s basketball standings. Breathe deeply and repeat after Idaho senior forward Anton Lyons.

“We’re going to get it together,” Lyons said. “We’re going to shock some people. We’re feeling fine.”

Lyons has a plan for how this turnaround will occur. Actually, it’s not Lyons’ plan. Its head coach Leonard Perry’s, and it’s a refrain he’s articulated since the second he stepped on the Moscow campus four years ago.

“We just stopped defending and rebounding the way we should; that’s about it,” said Lyons, explaining Idaho’s 1-7 slide over the last month. “That’s pretty much why we’ve been losing lately.”

That essentially constitutes a personal affront to Perry, who considers defending and rebounding the backbone of the program. Find another program that has those two words on the cover of its media guide. In fact, starting with “defend” on the top of page 2 and “rebound” on the top of page 3, those words alternate all the way to the last page, No. 106, of the guide.

“We have to get back to defending and rebounding,” Perry said. “That’s the way we know how to do it and the way we’ve been taught to do it. When we do those things, we’re a pretty decent team. When we get away from that, we struggle to beat people.”

The numbers reinforce Perry’s statement. During Idaho’s best stretch of the season, a 7-4 jaunt from Dec. 11 through Jan. 22, the Vandals gave up 67 points or more four times. Three were losses. They were outrebounded three times in those 11 games – all three were losses.

“We’ve been trying to outscore teams and that hasn’t been working too good,” said Dandrick Jones, the conference’s leading scorer, but perhaps more important, one of Idaho’s better defenders.

That approach has resulted in Idaho free falling in the standings. After a home win against Cal State Fullerton on Jan. 22, the Vandals were 5-2 in the Big West, tied in the loss column with Cal State Northridge for second place.

Today, the Vandals are 6-9 and in sixth place. Idaho, which had visions of first- and possibly second-round byes dancing in its heads on Jan. 22, hasn’t clinched a spot in the Big West Tournament, which requires a top-eight finish.

The Vandals have given up ground to all their closest pursuers. UC-Irvine (5-9), UC Riverside (4-10) and Long Beach State (4-10) are within a game in the loss column. Cal Poly (2-12) appears to be destined for last place (10th).

UC Irvine invades Memorial Gym tonight at 7 and Long Beach State drops by Saturday at 5.

“I think there’s a lot of pressure on us to win both these games to try to secure a fifth- or sixth-place spot,” Jones said. “You don’t want to go into the tournament on a four- or five-game losing streak. On the flip side, if you can go in with a couple wins, you’re going to be confident trying to win three (tourney) games in a row.”

To restore Idaho’s confidence, it needs to return to its grinding, defensive-minded style.

“We’ve gotten away from our identity,” Jones said. “The second half of (Saturday’s UC) Riverside game we showed the old team, but we still have to finish the game. We’re getting back in the groove, and I think you’ll see a different team this week.”

Lyons practically guaranteed it.

“We’re one of those teams that can all of a sudden start playing well,” said Lyons, recalling that Idaho was 1-8 when it hung a 69-62 loss on conference power Utah State back in December. “We’ve dropped out of the hunt (for the conference title) and nobody’s thinking about us any longer, but we believe we can really make some noise.”

That is, if they get back to defending and rebounding.

“Coach (Perry) is telling us the right things; we just have to go out and do what he tells us to do,” Lyons said. “On the chalkboard before games it’s strictly defense; nothing about offense.”