RENO — For the second straight year, patience, confidence and defensive execution have Idaho State on a three-game winning streak at the Reno Events Center.
With Friday afternoon’s 54-50 victory over Portland State, the sixth-seeded Bengals are into the championship game of the Big Sky Conference tournament for a second straight season. And the semifinal win sets up a rematch filled with intrigue.
Idaho State has proven the thorn in the side of the Montana State Bobcats for most of the last five seasons. Before last week’s 67-59 Bobcat win in Bozeman, the Bengals had defeated the Bobcats in eight of the last 10 contests and 21 of the last 27.
Idaho State senior Freya Newton looks for junior Lindsay Brown
ISU eliminated the top-seeded Bobcats in thrilling fashion a season ago. Juliet Jones hit a half-court buzzer-beater to drop the league champions out of the tournament after just one game.
This season, Montana State’s win over Idaho State on February 1 was part of a four-game winning streak to end the season and give the Bobcats a second straight Big Sky regular-season championship. The Bengals lost three straight down the stretch to fall to the No. 6 seed in this week’s tournament, putting them on the other side of the bracket as the top seed.
Montana State sophomore Annika Lai hit a left-handed layup with three seconds to play to lift MSU to a 61-59 win over No. 4 Eastern Washington in the first game of Friday’s semifinal action. The Bobcats and Bengals square off at 12:05 p.m. PST with a bid to the NCAA Tournament on the line.
The Bengals have won three games here for a second straight year by using Seton Sobolewski’s formula. Idaho State’s head coach demands hard-nosed defense and high effort on the glass. His team has won six postseason games in two years using the formula.
Idaho State’s Lindsay Brown
This year’s Idaho State run has included similar elements as a season ago. Idaho State forced Montana to miss 19 shots in 20 attempts during the middle stretch of Monday’s 63-53 victory. ISU pounded No. 3 Northern Colorado and got some late-game heroics from sophomore Saylair Grandon to move into the semifinals.
Grandon hit three big fourth-quarter jump shots, including a go-ahead basket with three seconds to play to lift the Bengals past UNC.
“There has been similarities in the sense that we have had a couple of fairytale shots but this team is just so different that it’s hard to compare the run,” ISU senior Freya Newton said. “It’s similar in some ways and not in others. We hope it ends differently.”
ISU ran out of gas against Idaho in last year’s championship, slumping in the second half as the Vandals, formerly of the WAC, advanced to their third NCAA Tournament in four years.
“It won’t be much different,” Sobolewski said. “We had a great first half last year and we ran out of gas a little bit in the second half. I don’t think we will do anything different. We will get good rest, do a walk through, get a film session in. Tomorrow, it’s just about energy and effort.”
Against Portland State, the Bengals held the Big Sky’s top shooting team in terms of field goal percentage to 34 percent, including just 31.8 percent after halftime. PSU, the league’s tallest and longest team, won the battle of the boards 32-31 but Idaho State prevailed thanks to offensive patience against PSU’s 2-3 zone and the clutch shooting of a pair of freshmen.
“I thought we shot the ball really well,” Sobolewski said. “(Freshman) Bianca Thacker did a great job hitting four 3s, Estfania Ors did a great job shooting the ball against the zone. They weren’t really giving us much inside the 3-point line so thank goodness we hit some of those shots. I thought our defense was fantastic. We held them to 34 percent shooting. They are the No. 1 field goal shooting percentage in the conference. I thought everyone made great contributions and we are moving on.”
Idaho State sophomore Grace Kenyon
Idaho State knocked down five 3-pointers in each half and finished 10-of-21 from beyond the arc. Thacker, a native of Adelaide, Australia, knocked down 4-of-6 from deep and scored a team-high 18 points. Ors, a native of Altura, Spain and the league’s Freshman of the Year, hit all four of her tries from distance and scored 15 points.
“That was a pretty big part of our offense today was moving the ball so we could get an open shot and it’s hard because we try to get inside,” Newton said. “We were having trouble working in there so we had to be patient and look for the outside kick.”
Portland State made just two 3-pointers in 10 attempts and just 16-of-47 shots overall. ISU allowed PSU to hit just seven second-half field goals.
“We just played hard today,” said Newton, the Big Sky Defensive MVP. “I don’t think it was anything special with the scout. Our defense, we just played really, really hard today.”
Two nights after hitting 7-of-10 shots and scoring 18 points, Grandon did not hit her first field goal until 4:31 left in the game. That elbow jumper gave ISU a 49-40 lead, its largest. But PSU sophomore Courtney West, who finished with 16 points, and the Vikings chipped away, cutting the lead to 49-46 with 1:13 left on a Cici West free throw.
On the next possession, PSU elected to not use any of the four fouls it had to give, allowing ISU to run nearly 30 seconds off the block. Grandon penetrated thanks to a screen from ISU junior Lindsay Brown that leveled PSU guard Kian McNair at the top of the zone. Grandon drilled the jumper to push the lead to 51-46 with 42 seconds left. Grandon hit two free throws, Grandon hit one and PSU missed a pair of 3-point tries to help the Bengals secure their 19th win this season.
Idaho State will gun for the NCAA Tournament berth since 2012 with a tournament rematch against the No. 1 team in the Big Sky.
“They are the No. 1 seed for a reason,” Sobolewski said. “They have two or three of the best players in the conference. We are going to have our hands full. They are a real talented team and we always seem to have good battles against them. It’s going to be a tough one.”
Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
