Vandals vanquish WSU

Slow starts to both halves and porous shooting plagued the WSU men’s basketball team last night as their late comeback bid fell short. The Cougars lost 77-71 to Idaho at home. The loss dropped the Cougars to 3-4 for the season and ended their 11-game winning streak against the Vandals.

The Vandals took a 41-40 lead with 16:33 left in the game and never looked back. Idaho’s lead eventually swelled to 14 before the Cougars mounted a rally. With 28 seconds remaining, it was a four-point game, but that was as close as it would get for the remainder of the game.

WSU’s shooting was unreliable all night as they shot 35 percent from the field and made only five of 30 shots from the arc.

“We have to shoot the ball,” Head Coach Ernie Kent said. “This conference is a scoring conference. It’s been the Achilles heel of this program of the last couple years.”

However, shooting was not the only problem for the Cougars last night as they allowed Idaho to shoot 53.6 percent from the floor in the second half and 4-6 from long range.

“There were wide open shots, a lot of them, we didn’t make them but shooters keep shooting,” senior guard DaVonté Lacy said.

Lacy went 3-13 from the field for the game.

One of the bright spots for the Cougars was sophomore guard Ike Iroegbu. He shot 6-10 from the field and Kent said his driving ability contributed to the team’s effort. Iroegbu fouled out of the game with 9:22 left in the game. He finished with 13 points and four assists in 21 minutes of play.

“Coach Kent and the coaching staff kept telling me to keep on driving and to try and get to the rim,” Iroegbu said.

Idaho started the game by making five of their first eight shots, including three 3-pointers. The Cougar defense did recover from their shaky start and held the Vandals to 7-24 shooting the rest of the half.

WSU’s offense also picked up as the half wore on as they eventually cut the deficit to 32-31 by half time. Josh Hawkinson led the Cougars at the half with 16 points on 8-16 shooting. Hawkinson did not appear to be tentative with the ball, taking open shots when he had them. Iroegbu was also effective, shooting 50 percent from the field in the first half with six points and three assists.