MOSCOW ? It was another one of those nights for the University of Idaho women's basketball team, as the Vandals couldn't get anything to fall and couldn't handle the Louisiana Tech Lady Techsters and fell by an 80-55 margin Saturday night at the Cowan Spectrum.
The Vandals offensive woes were only compounded by the fact that the Lady Techsters seemingly couldn't miss in the first half, even if they tried. Tech opened the game shooting seven-of-11 and jumped out to a 19-2 lead over the first 10 minutes of the game. The Vandals, by contrast, missed their first 14 attempts from the field until Sara Dennehy made a layup at the 10:32 mark.
Four minutes went by before the Vandals would make another field goal, while the Techsters made five in a row during the span. Louisiana Tech, a team that ranks seventh in the Western Athletic Conference in field goal percentage shot a blistering 61.5 percent from the field in the first half, while the Vandals could only muster a 24.1 percent clip on seven-of-29 shooting.
“(The Techsters) don't shoot the ball very well. They shoot 38 percent as a team and even less than that in the league, and then anything that leaves their hand goes in tonight,” Idaho head coach Mike Divilbiss said. “On those nights, you have to learn to play to your level of effort. You can't let the fact that the ball is going in for them affect your intensity level, and I think it did.”
Katie Madison led Idaho with what has become a typical Madison game, as she dropped 20 points on seven-of-nine shooting, including six-of-six from the free-throw line, along with seven boards. The rest of the team combined to shoot just 26.9 percent from the field.
Divilbiss knows that the team will continue to have growing pains, especially since the team has started the NCAA's youngest starting lineup?four true freshmen and one true sophomore?over the past three games, but that they key is to make each experience part of the learning process.
“I think we're a better basketball team than we showed tonight,” Divilbiss said. “You don't start four freshmen and think that everything's going to be perfect all the time, because it's not.
“You just have to keep building, not get discouraged and keep fighting. These are tests of character for us.”
After going into the locker room down 41-22 at the half, the Vandals came out with more fire and intensity, as they clamped down the defense in the second half and jumped to a 10-0 run at the 13:05 mark to get within 13 at 40-53 with 9:31 remaining, but a three-pointer by La'Kenya Simon-West, who had nine points off the bench, fell just short and the Techsters rattled off six straight to end the run and take the wind out of the Vandal sails.
With the loss, Idaho falls to 2-20 on the season and 1-9 in WAC play, while Louisiana Tech moves to 11-12 and 5-5 in the WAC. The Vandals will now hit the road for a three-game stretch away from Moscow, starting with next week's matchups at Fresno State and Nevada, before going to Boise State the following weekend.
The Vandals saw the team's largest home crowd of the season, 788 people, come out to support Idaho and the “Think Pink” initiative.
