Idaho goes cold, falls to UC Irvine

IRVINE, Calif. – The University of Idaho men’s basketball team fell 69-55 at UC Irvine as part of the O’Reilly ESPNU BracketBusters basketball extravaganza Saturday.

Michael Crowell scored a career high 21 points on five 3-pointers and Jordan Brooks earned a double-double with 11 points and 13 rebounds. The Vandals (6-19) were hampered by 39 percent shooting while the Anteaters (12-14) shot 47 percent from the floor. Idaho also committed 21 turnovers which led to 16 points for UC Irvine.

“We didn’t shoot the ball well tonight other than Crowell and we didn’t get a lot of scoring inside,” Idaho coach George Pfeifer said. “UC Irvine makes a mess out of a lot of team’s offenses. Defensively, we worked our tails off. We really bore down and got into people.”

Outside of Crowell and Brooks, the rest of the Idaho team hit just nine field goals. The Vandals did hit seven 3-pointers and held a 34-31 advantage in rebounding.

The game stayed close through most of the first half and was tied for the fourth time at 13-13 with 7:23 remaining. Idaho took a 17-15 advantage, but UC Irvine used a 7-0 run to move ahead by five with 1:59 remaining in the half. The Vandals cut the lead to two on a Crowell 3-pointer, but the Anteaters scored the final six points to move ahead 28-20 at half time.

UC Irvine moved ahead by 10 points to start the second half and later led by 12 on two occasions. The Anteaters led 40-26 with 12:53 remaining, but the Vandals cut the margin to eight with six straight points.

Idaho later pulled within six points at 43-37 with 8:48 remaining and trailed by seven with 7:44 to go. UC Irvine responded with back-to-back 3-pointers to move ahead by 13 points and later earned its largest advantage at 57-39 with 4:18 remaining.

Idaho came no closer than 13 points over the remaining four minutes.