Vandals do battle with No. 10 Nevada

The Idaho Vandals, fresh from their first victory in 47 days, will try for back-to-back wins for the first time since early last season. If they were to pull it off, they’d be the talk of the men’s college basketball world.

Idaho, 50-49 winners over five-win San Jose State on Tuesday in the first round of the Western Athletic Conference tournament, takes on conference kingpin Nevada at 11 a.m. PST today at the Pan American Center in Las Cruces, N.M. The ninth-seeded Vandals (4-26) lost by 26 and 16 in the regular season to the top-seeded and 10th-ranked Wolf Pack (27-3), who boast three-time conference player of the year Nick Fazekas.

The Vandals will be heavy underdogs against Nevada, which has won two of the last three WAC tournaments and is trying to position itself for a favorable seed in the NCAA tournament. Keoni Watson’s last-second basket Tuesday gave Idaho its first WAC tournament win. Idaho joined the conference last season and lost in the opening round to Nevada.