Vandals show improvement

Four Western Athletic Conference men’s basketball teams qualified for postseason play last year.

Four more WAC players are now playing in the NBA.

Idaho coach George Pfeifer doesn’t believe his team, which is coming off a basement finish in the conference a year ago, is ready to challenge for postseason tournaments. Nor does his team necessarily possess potential NBA players. But Pfeifer adamantly believes his team is much more prepared for conference play than it was a year ago in his first go-around as the Vandals’ head coach.

“I’m not saying we’ve caught up with the Joneses, but we’re moving in that direction,” Pfeifer said. “The bottom line is our talent base is better.”

Now the question is will that translate into more conference victories this year after the Vandals managed just one in 16 games last year.

Idaho (3-8) will find out where it stands right away as the Vandals play host to New Mexico State tonight in a conference opener for both teams. The Aggies were picked to win the WAC in the media poll. Utah State was picked to capture the conference title in the coaches’ poll.

“New Mexico State, obviously, has quite a bit of talent,” Pfeifer said. “They’ve got height, size and scoring ability. They’re deep. And they’ve played a difficult non-conference schedule.”

The Aggies (5-9) split with in-state rival New Mexico, lost at Duke and fell 70-65 at Louisville. They return three starters including former Pullman High standout Fred Peete, a 6-foot-5 guard who is averaging 12.1 points and 4.1 rebounds.

Idaho has matched its regular-season win total from last year (three). So Pfeifer can point to a number of improvements this year over last year.

“I don’t know if it’s the right word, but the last four to five games we’ve started to jell,” Pfeifer said. “We’ve played better basketball for longer extended periods of time.”

That’s true especially in the first half, when Idaho has outscored most of its opponents.

“We’re not looking for moral victories,” Pfeifer said. “We’re shooting the ball better. When you start to do that it can become contagious.”

The Vandals could have as many as five victories if they had finished a little better.

“We’ve lost two games in the final 4.4 seconds,” Pfeifer said. “So we’re 8.8 seconds away from being 5-6 and the things we’d be talking about going into conference would be different.”

It goes without saying, then, that Pfeifer is much more encouraged going into his second conference season.

“No question about it,” he said. “Overall, we’ve got a few better pieces to work with than we had last year. I’m a lot more excited about what we’re ready to go do than a year ago. We’re creating close games, whereas last year we weren’t doing that. We’re starting to understand that everything is important – that the little things, like a defensive stop or executing an out-of-bounds play, turn into big things.”

One area Pfeifer is most concerned with heading into conference play is free-throw shooting.

“It’s getting better,” Pfeifer said. “We need to shoot a pile of free throws before we start conference. When you don’t make your free throws it can be deflating.”

The Vandals were picked to finish last in both polls.

“I don’t put a lot of stock in it,” Pfeifer said. “Right now the only thing we’re thinking about is preparations for New Mexico State.”