Turnovers hurt Idaho men during road loss to Cal State Bakersfield
UPDATED: Sat., Dec. 9, 2017
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. – Turnovers were the story on Saturday night, with Idaho falling at Cal State Bakersfield 66-55 in nonconference men’s basketball.
The Vandals (6-3) finished with 27 turnovers, the most by a Don Verlin-coached Idaho squad.
“You can’t win a basketball game on the road against a quality basketball team and turn it over 27 times,” Verlin said. “That was obviously the difference in the game. I thought our guys played extremely hard. … When you turn it over 27 times and they get 13 more shots than you, that’s not going to work.”
Victor Sanders scored a game-high 20 points for the Vandals, connecting on 4 of 8 3-pointers. Idaho lost for the first time in five games this season in which Sanders has scored 20 points.
Idaho led 14-8 midway through the first half, but the Roadrunners (6-6) put together a 15-0 run over the next 9 minutes. Idaho trailed 29-23 at halftime.
The Vandals tied the score at 29 early in the second half and again at 32 on a three-point-play by Arkadiy Mkrtychyan. But Cal State Bakersfield responded with an 11-0 run.
The Vandals cut the gap to 50-47, but the Roadrunners closed the night on a 16-8 run.
Idaho outrebounded the Roadrunners 43-27, topped by Perrion Callandret’s career-best eight.
Jordan Scott finished with nine points, his most against a Division I squad this season.
Damiyne Durham led four Roadrunners in double figures with 19 points, including 5 of 11 on 3-pointers.
Next up for Idaho is the final nonconference home game of the season, with Simon Fraser coming to Moscow on Friday night.
Local journalism is essential.
Give directly to The Spokesman-Review's Northwest Passages community forums series -- which helps to offset the costs of several reporter and editor positions at the newspaper -- by using the easy options below. Gifts processed in this system are not tax deductible, but are predominately used to help meet the local financial requirements needed to receive national matching-grant funds.
Subscribe to the sports newsletter
Get the day’s top sports headlines and breaking news delivered to your inbox by subscribing here.