MOSCOW ? It was the same story for the Idaho women's basketball team for the third game in a row.
Missed free throws, missed lay-ups and unforced turnovers led to a 60-56 loss to Boise State in the team's Western Athletic Conference opener on Saturday.
Just six days after missing 11 free throws in a four-point loss at Portland, the Vandal women missed eight in a four-point loss against Boise State. Idaho additionally turned the ball over 21 times ? most of them bad passes or unforced errors.
“They're free throws. We're not making them and they're costing us ballgames and that's the bottom line,” Idaho head coach Jon Newlee said. “We didn't take very good care of the ball tonight and that really hurt us.”
Freshman Shaena Kuehu came off the bench to lead Idaho with 14 points on six-of-12 shooting, along with eight rebounds in 24 minutes. Sophomore Yinka Olorunnife, the team's leading scorer on the year, dropped in 13 points along with nine rebounds with one assist and one steal, but was limited during the second half after getting into foul trouble.
Statistically, the game was a near dead-heat. Idaho led the points off turnovers by a 20-17 margin, while Boise State held a 20-16 advantage in paint points and a 10-4 advantage in second-chance points. Idaho shot .370 from the field, while the Broncos shot .368 and BSU held a 42-35 rebounding advantage, but the telling statistic was free throws, where Idaho shot six-of-14 (.429) and BSU shot 15-of-21 (.714).
The Broncos jumped out to a quick 8-2 first half lead and went up by as many as nine before Idaho closed it out late in the half to get to 25-24 at the 3:02 mark on a Kuehu 3-pointer, but Idaho would get no closer, as BSU ended the half on a 7-0 run and started the second on a 6-0 run that stretched the lead to 14 at 38-24 with 18:36 remaining.
The Vandals showed they still had some fight left, as the team rallied to cut the lead down to just four at 51-47 with 4:53 remaining, but a combination of turnovers, missed free throws and missed lay-ups never allowed the Vandals to get closer.
Newlee said that he was happy to see the team come back with some fight in the second half, and that there are positives to draw from, but the team must now turn its complete attention to Monday's game against Utah State.
“We don't have time to dwell on it,” Newlee said. “Utah State is coming in and we need to defend our home floor ... It's so crucial in conference that you win your home games and we can't worry about what happened out here (today).
“It's over and done with, as far as I'm concerned. We'll take the good things out of here and show them what we're capable of doing and project that into the Utah State game.”
Monday's game against Utah State tips off at 7 p.m. (PST) at the Cowan Spectrum. The game will be the WAC opener for the 6-7 Aggies, who come into the game having lost at Utah Valley University on Saturday by an 84-79 margin.
