MOSCOW, Idaho - A confidence that may have been lacking in early January clearly was with the University of Idaho Vandals Thursday night at the Cowan Spectrum.
They used a gritty determination down the stretch to upend Pacific 60-55 and secure no worse than fifth place in the Big West Conference race by improving to 9-8 in league play and 13-13 overall.
"We knew coming in they weren't scared of us at all," said senior guard Justin Logan, whose team-best 19 points included four clutch free throws in the final 33 seconds. "They basically killed us at their place."
The Vandals atoned for that loss that marked the beginning of Big West play on Jan. 2 by playing the type of basketball coach Leonard Perry preaches - the type with baseline-to-baseline defense, offensive patience and minimal turnovers. Sure, there were breakdowns here and lapses there but nothing like what was witnessed in the 23-point drubbing at Stockton.
Thursday's victory was only the second for Idaho in 12 games against Pacific. The other was a 68-62 decision at Moscow on Jan. 15, 2000.
Of course, nothing comes easy for these Vandals. They'd built an 11-point lead with eight minutes to play and had the look of a team in control and ready to roll. Pacific had other ideas. Two layups by Tim Johnson surrounded a flurry of misses and turnovers by both teams and trimmed Idaho's lead to seven, 50-43 with 4:29 remaining.
Logan's 3-pointer with 4:02 to go put the Vandals back up by 10. Miah Davis responded for the Tigers with back-to-back 3s and suddenly a 10-point lead was four. A Demetrious Jackson layup with 2:12 to go made it a precarious two-point, 53-51, perch.
Jack May, who finished six points and 11 rebounds for the Vandals, made it four again with two free throws at the 1:57 mark. Jackson then converted a May turnover into a layup and the Vandals' lead was back to two, 55-53, with 1:20 on the clock.
That set the stage for Idaho's final parade to the free throw line where Dwayne Williams made one in-between Logan's four.
"In the second half, we responded," said Perry, whose team relinquished a nine-point first half lead to trail 25-24 at halftime. "We came out. We executed. We stuck open shots and we defended. That's a very good shooting team. They're talented."
And the Vandals went to the boards. They outrebounded a significantly taller Pacific team by 12, 40-28. While May was the mainstay, Rashaad Powell also had nine boards and Tyrone Hayes finished with eight.
"We don't put a lot of emphasis on size," Perry said. "We put a lot of emphasis on if there are five guys out there, we better put five bodies on them. If we don't, it will kill our chances to win."
What the Vandals have found of late (a victory last Saturday at Utah State to go with Thursday's decision over Pacific), is what they'll need as they wrap up the regular season and head into next week's tournament.
"It's 85 percent mental from this point on in the season," Perry said. "The tougher teams are going to buckle up and get in the car and see if they can win."
