Taylor Meeks

Sports Writer

The Idaho State University men’s basketball team battled against three opponents under the bright lights of Holt Arena for its last home games of the regular season before traveling to Boise for the 2019 Big Sky Conference tournament.

ISU faced off against Weber State University Monday night, Eastern Washington University Thursday night and University of Idaho Saturday night in an unusual week of matches. It was a roller coaster of a week as the Bengals concluded the regular season with two wins and a loss.

“I would think that if we have any kind of anything that it would be a positive, that we would be excited going into the tournament,” head coach Bill Evans said. “We need to recognize that we have a chance to be successful in this tournament because we have a pretty good team.”

In a thrilling back-and-forth fight Monday, ISU overpowered Weber, 78-74, in the final moments of the game to take the win. Junior Balint Mocsan led the Bengals in scoring with 20 points and contributed three rebounds. Juniors Brandon Boyd and Kelvin Jones scored 19 points, and Jones secured 10 rebounds, tying his season-high.

After Monday’s match, Evans decided to give his team ample rest by cancelling practice the next day. Instead, the team took care of their bodies and watched game film to prepare for Thursday’s match.

Unfortunately, the preparation wasn’t enough. ISU lead for the majority of the first half, but Eastern Washington took a two-point lead at the half and dominated the rest of the game to secure the win, 91-62.

“We played okay the first half,” Evans said. “We were missing a lot of opportunities to throw the ball to people in the post. I think our guys let the way they played offensively affect the way they played defensively.”

Starting the second half, ISU went nearly eight minutes without scoring a basket while it seemed that Eastern Washington couldn’t miss. The Bengals finished the game with a 42.1 shooting percentage from the field and only making two of 14 three pointers.

Jones led the team in scoring with 17 points and also added four rebounds. Junior Alonzo Walker had 12 points and secured eight rebounds.

In the last home game of the season against University of Idaho Saturday night, it appeared that a repeat of Thursday’s game was about to unfold. Idaho controlled the entire first half of the game, shooting 54.5 percent from the field and an impressive 66.7 percent from beyond the arc.

“I told them we have a job to do, that we get to do this, that we don’t have to do this,” Evans said. “I told Sam and Blake there’s a last time for everything. It’s the last time those guys get to compete on this floor. We need to take advantage of opportunities because they fleet fast.”

Going into half time, ISU was down, 45-34, and they were shooting below 40 percent everywhere. The Bengals trailed the entire first half by a margin of 15 at one point.

As the second half started, ISU battled to narrow the gap between their opponent. After clawing their way back, point by point, and playing harder on defense, the Bengals were able to take control of the game for the first time.

“We picked up our effort level and our intensity,” junior Gary Chivichyan said. “We stopped them from the arc and did a better job from the three-point line. I think they had eight or nine threes in the first half, and you can’t win games like that.”

In the last minutes of the game, the Bengals and the Vandals were neck in neck with just a small margin separating them. With only 10 seconds left, Jones was sent to the free-throw line for the seventh time, where he sunk one of the two shots to push the Bengals to a 70-68 victory over the Vandals.

After barely squeezing by Idaho, ISU hopes to use the momentum from the last home wins going into the tournament this week. They are the number 10 seed and will face number seven Southern Utah around 12 p.m. Wednesday afternoon.

“Going into these playoffs, we have to focus on the team we are when we are winning games, playing with effort and going out there sharing the ball, helping one another out,” Chivichyan said. “We have to continue to motivate one another because we know we have the talent on this team right now to make some noise in the playoffs.”