Lucas Gebhart
Sports Editor
The ISU men’s basketball team was picked to finish dead last in both the preseason coaches and media polls.
Well, they were wrong. ISU is currently 9-5 in conference play, good enough to currently be fourth in the Big Sky Conference (BSC) just two weeks before the BSC tournament in Reno.
The season showed that it was starting to turn after a 100-76 loss to Utah Valley where the Bengals were humiliated defensively.
The Bengals were giving up 83.3 points per game after the loss to Utah Valley. Since then, ISU has given up an average of 70.8 points per game. ISU is 11-7 in their last 17 games. The Bengals started their first 17 games with a record of 8-9.
ISU is currently tied for the fifth best start in school history with a 14-12 overall record.
ISU started conference play with a 1-3 record with losses coming to Weber State, North Dakota and Sacramento State. Then Ethan Telfair hit that buzzer-beater to defeat first place Weber State and ISU was off and running.
Since the buzzer-beater, ISU is 7-2 with losses coming at North Dakota and Northern Arizona.
The last time ISU had a winning record in conference play was during the 2008-09 season where they finished 9-7 and ISU already has nine conference wins this season. With the Bengals most recent win at Southern Utah, ISU has guaranteed a winning record in conference play.
After the Portland State game on February 11, head coach Bill Evans described his feelings as relieved.
The Bengals led Portland State by double digits going into the half but the Vikings cut the lead to one going into the under-twelve timeout. Then, Evans turned to his star point guard, Ethan Telfair, and told him three words. “Lead this team.”
And lead he did, Telfair ended the game with 35 points and an 88-71 ISU victory.
“People are expecting us to win all of a sudden and that hasn’t happened in a long, long time,” Evans said, adding that he feels more pressure than he did last year due to the change in expectation.
Defense has not been the only key to the Bengals new-found success. ISU is 11-0 when shooting over 45 percent from the field. The Bengals have shot over 50 percent eight times, seven of which have come in conference play.
“Good teams find a way to win,” senior Ben Wilson said. “We have matured and we are playing together and getting stops when we need to.”
Good teams have good players, and Wilson is not the only player that has stepped up for ISU this season. Telfair leads the conference in assists per game with 5.6 APG, giving the Bengals a spark that they have been looking for.
Telfair has the ability to light it up from downtown. Along with three point specialist, Gary Chivichyan, who leads all BSC players in three-point attempts, ISU is 6-0 when they make more then 11 3-pointers in a game.
“They said we were going to be last when I first got here, so yeah I’m looking at the standings. I want them to know that we are making that noise,” Telfair said. “We had a lot of growing to do,” Telfair explained, adding that the team has learned how to sacrifice and the team has figured out how they can play together.
ISU heads into the final two weeks of the regular season with a legitimate chance at gaining a top four seed in the BSC tournament. That is important because the top four seeds in the new tournament format get a first round bye. What that means for ISU is they only need to win three games to go to the NCAA tournament.
This season, ISU has a chance to do something they have not done since 1987: actually go to the tournament.
In 1987, ISU was a 16 seed where they dropped their first game to a UNLV team who lost to eventual national champion Indiana in the Final Four.
Junior guard Geno Luzcando has been nothing short of stellar at times this season as he has scored in double figures 16 out of the last 18 games.
ISU’s final two home games are against Montana on Feb. 25 who is second in the BSC and Feb.27 where they will take on Montana State who is seventh. Both games will be in Reed gym and both games will have a significant say in what seed ISU gets in Reno.
The 2015-16 ISU basketball team is having one of the best seasons in school history. The Bengals are nearing a school record for 3-pointers made and attempted. ISU is 219-562 from downtown. The school record for most three-pointers is 237 by the 2000-01 team in a single season. To put that in perspective, ISU made 148 threes all of last season.
The Bengals are doing something of the likes that this school has not seen in years and it is vital for the student body to come to the Montana games and pack the student section because conference seeding is on the line.
