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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Vandals down cold-shooting Cougars

Victory in annual game Idaho’s first in Pullman in 25 years

Idaho forward Bira Seck, right, and forward Paulin Mpawe fight for a rebound as Washington State forward Josh Hawkinson (24) watches. (AP)
PULLMAN – With just 4 minutes to play in Washington State’s annual matchup against Idaho, a pair of Cougar fans in the front row tried to lead the comeback themselves. They stood up and began the dormant crowd’s first organized cheer of the game. Others followed, the band woke up and in all aspects it finally felt like the Cougars were playing a home game. Except for WSU’s shooting. The Cougars shot like the ball was too big and the baskets weren’t the correct height in a 77-71 loss in front of an announced crowd of 2,723. It was Idaho (3-4) coach Don Verlin’s 100th victory as a head coach and UI’s first win in Pullman in 25 years. WSU (3-4) made just 5 of 30 3-point attempts, a number that was bolstered by a pair of deep baskets from DaVonte Lacy, who led the Cougars with 17 points, late in the game. Lacy and Dexter Kernich-Drew, WSU’s two most effective shooters, combined to make just 4 of 20 shots. “They were wide-open shots, a lot of them, and I think in the flow of the game you get a lot of open shots and we didn’t make them,” Lacy said. “Shooters keep shooting and we got a lot of open shots, we just didn’t hit them.” The Cougars entered the game shooting 31 percent from behind the arc and have made 45 of 160 this season. “This conference (Pac-12) is a scoring conference and it’s been the Achilles’ heel for this program for the last couple years. They’ve not been able to shoot the ball,” WSU coach Ernie Kent said. It wasn’t just the crowd that was lacking in energy. The Vandals stormed out to a 14-2 lead thanks to outside shooting from Connor Hill and Mike Scott that was the envy of the home team. The UI backcourt duo each scored 19 points and combined to shoot 50 percent from the floor. Kent said he gave the team too much time off after playing three games in three days during last week’s Great Alaska Shootout, and lost what momentum had been gained from two consecutive wins. “We grew up and got a lot tougher on the road,” Kent said. “We let it get away from us here. “To me it was apparent yesterday. You could tell just from the perspective of coming back to campus, and you kind of drop your guard because you get off the road because you’ve got to get back involved in class and everything too.” But the Cougars were quicker and fast breaks led by Ike Iroegbu led to easy layups or at least an open jumper for the trailing Josh Hawkinson. Kent told the Cougars to keep driving and went with a small lineup to get more speed on the floor. It’s a look the Cougars are toying with, although their coach would prefer it be an occasional weapon and not a regular rotation. “We shouldn’t have had to go small in this game. But we didn’t get a lot out of our bigs so we had to do that,” Kent said. “We’re going to be forced to do that at times this year – I hope to not rely on it all year long because it’s very difficult to do against a team that can make you pay if their bigs are playing well and teams don’t have to adjust and go small with you.” The tradeoff was that WSU’s smaller players weren’t able to effectively defend UI’s post players, which led to foul trouble for Iroegbu. With 11 minutes left, Iroegbu picked up his fourth foul, muting one of WSU’s two reliable sources of points. He sat just more than a minute before he was inserted back into the game, and quickly fouled out. Iroegbu scored 13 points to go with four assists. Hawkinson had 16 points and 10 rebounds.