Denim Millward
Sports Editor
Close but no cigar.
Presumed to originate from turn-of-the-century carnivals where game prizes were often cigars instead of oversized stuffed animals, it’s a phrase the ISU men’s basketball team must utterly detest by now.
Out of 33 losses in the past two years, 26 of those have come by single digits.
Even more absurdly, 14 of those losses have been within four points. Fourteen times in the past two seasons, the Bengals have been in the game right down to the final buzzer, but have come up just short.
After three such losses in a row, the Bengals finally found themselves on the right end of a tight contest, grinding out a hard-fought win against Portland State last Saturday, Jan. 24 in Holt Arena.
A trio of seniors lead the scoring charge for the Bengals with redshirt senior Nnamdi Ezenwa and senior Chris Hansen each pouring in 17 points, and senior forward Jeffrey Solarin chipping in 15.
Though the triumvirate of seniors did the bulk of the scoring, it was a walk-on sophomore who put the final nail in the coffin.
Guard and Cedar City, Utah native Erik Nakken was fouled with two seconds left in the game and the Bengals up by two.
With another heartbreakingly close loss possible should he miss one or both of the free throws, Nakken drained both shots and sealed the upset win for Idaho State over the 10-8 Vikings.
“It’s great,” Nakken said to ISU Sports Information following the game. “It is what you work for. You put in a lot of time for moments like this. All the hours are worth it for those few seconds I was in at the end. It felt great.”
In addition to the crucial free throws, Nakken hit two three-point shots on three attempts.
“Everyone rallies around [Nakken] because we know how much work he puts in and how much he loves the game,” Hansen said to ISU Sports Information. “When he hit those threes, we got excited and pumped.”
A tight game throughout, the Bengals trailed the Vikings until 8:41 in the first half on a made field goal by Solarin. They went into the locker room with a 45-41 lead and played the Vikings dead even in the second half, each team scoring 35 points.
“I am happy for my guys,” head coach Bill Evans told ISU Sports Information. “They practiced and played hard and deserved this win.”
Though it was their first victory in the previous five games, the win over Portland State was the team’s second consecutive impressive performance that, record-wise, was superior.
With their already-faint hopes of making the Big Sky Conference Tournament growing increasingly dim, the 4-13 Bengals returned home after a week of road games to face off against the first-place Sacramento State Hornets at Holt Arena Jan. 22.
The Bengals played the Hornets tough in the first half, trailing by 4 at half, 30-26.
Sac State embarked on a 13-5 run to begin the second half and held their largest lead of the game at 43-31 with just under 14 minutes left in the contest.
The Bengals chipped away at the double-digit defecit over the next 11 minutes, ultimately taking the lead on a Solarin layup with 3 minutes left.
Sac State fought back and built a four-point lead with 1:45 left in the game, but redshirt junior guard Ben Wilson’s lay up and a subsequent three-point shot by Hansen gave the Bengals a 59-58 lead with just 33 seconds left in the game.
The Hornets regained the lead with 13 seconds left after ISU was whistled for a foul and Hornet Zach Mills sank both ensuing free throws. The next Bengal possession ended in a turnover and the Hornets sunk two more free throws to ice the game.
“It is frustrating,” Ezenwa told ISU Sports Information following the game. “We fought so hard the whole game. We were executing when we needed to execute and got stops when we needed to get stops. It came down to the last couple of plays and the ball bounced their way.”
Solarin led the Bengals with 16 points and pulled down 8 rebounds.
Ezenwa chipped in 14 points and 5 rebounds, while Wilson had 10 points and 5 assists.
This week, the Bengals are back on the road, first heading to Greeley to match up with the Northern Colorado Bears Jan. 29 at 7 p.m., and then to Grand Forks for a matinee match-up with North Dakota at 2 p.m.
