Winkelman, Bison ramble over Vandals

MOSCOW, Idaho – Forgive George Pfeifer if he wakes up from a sound sleep early Saturday morning with the words “Iso 3” ringing in his ears.

Idaho’s first-year head coach heard that phrase repeatedly as North Dakota State’s favorite play helped forward Brett Winkelman pour in 32 points to lead the Bison to a 91-76 season-opening men’s basketball victory Friday in front 1,195 spectators at Memorial Gym.

When it wasn’t Winkelman scoring his career high, it was point guard Ben Woodside driving for 18 points and dishing out nine assists, or forward Andre Smith powering for 20 points or guard Mike Nelson chipping in 13.

North Dakota State shot 57 percent from the field in the first half and 80 percent from the free-throw line – and then the Bison heated up.

NDSU made 19 of 28 shots in the second half and came up with offensive rebounds on six of the misses. For the game, the Bison shot 63 percent from the field and 83 at the foul line.

It was the most points allowed by Idaho since a 92-54 loss to UC Irvine midway through the 2001-02 season.

“The easy assessment is we couldn’t guard anybody,” Pfeifer said. “If you had told me before the game we’d shoot 50 percent and have nine turnovers I’d have felt pretty good about it.

“I knew one of the biggest things we had to do was guard the bounce. We have quickness, but we just didn’t sustain it. And then we put them on the free-throw line 29 times. They made more free throws than we attempted. On the rare occasion we’d guard them for 15 seconds, we’d bail them out by lunging for the ball.”

In fairness, NDSU returns five starters and was productive on offense last season. Still, the Bison had no problems finding wide-open looks.

“Offensively, we’re a pretty good bunch,” Bison coach Tim Miles said. “We move the ball and if we don’t turn it over we think we can be dangerous.”

The Vandals tried at least three different defenders on Winkelman, who scored 27 points as Idaho and NDSU split two games last season.

“I got tired of them calling out ‘Iso 3’ because they got the ball to him and we just weren’t tough enough to guard him,” Pfeifer said.

Idaho tried a zone defense, but that didn’t stop the flood of points.

“We haven’t spent much time with our zone, which we need to do,” Pfeifer said. “We were God-awful at it. At one point, I made the comment to one of my assistants that we might as well zone them with a bad zone versus playing them with this bad man-to-man.”

Idaho’s porous defense overshadowed a fairly efficient offensive performance. Center Desmond Nwoke, who averaged just three points last season, scored 10 first-half points to keep Idaho close. Miles Webb scored the last seven points of the half as Idaho overcame a nine-point deficit to even the score at 40.

The Vandals had success in the open court, but their opportunities were limited because they couldn’t get enough defensive stops.

“We had 40 at half and it wasn’t like they were stopping us,” said speedy point guard Mario Mackey, one of seven players making their Vandal debuts. “For the first game out with all the new guys we have, we did a pretty good job offensively, but we have to get better defensively because that’s where you win games.”

Mackey scored a team-high 21 points. Clyde Johnson added 14 points and seven boards.