Feb. 19, 2009
Final Stats
Bozeman, MT --- Idaho State got balanced offense across the board, and they once again stymied Montana State defensively and picked up a huge road win as Idaho State took down the Bobcats 63-56 in Worthington Arena. With the win ISU stays in fourth place, and they gained a full game on second place Montana.
Idaho State got a game-high 13 points from Donnie Carson, who did most of his damage at the line going 7-for-8 there. Along with Carson's 13, Matt Stucki, Lucas Steijn, and Amorrow Morgan all had 12 points.
The lead traded back and forth until Donnie Carson scored his only first half basket on a layup, and ISU would never trail after that. The game stayed fairly close though until the second half when the Bengals pushed the lead to 11 with 1:16 to go after an Amorrow Morgan dunk. MSU however would not go away. After Will Bynum hit for 12 points in the second half, including MSU's first eight of the second half, the Bobcats made a late run at it, getting two threes within four seconds of each other, and a pair of free throws each way to make it 61-56 with 27.4 left. However, Austin Kilpatrick added a free throw, Danny Piepoli missed a long three, Matt Stucki added another free throw with 16.0 left to end the scoring.
The Bengals improved to 10-17 overall and more importantly 7-6 in the conference, and now ISU has a sweep of the Bobcats, who dropped to 12-12 and 6-7 in the league. ISU now has plenty of tiebreakers, and they head to Montana on Saturday with second place amazingly enough still in play after Montana lost to Weber State on Thursday night. The Wildcats clinched the right to host the Big Sky Tournament with that win.
For MSU, Will Bynum had 15 points and Branden Johnson added 13. ISU was outrebounded 39-37, but ISU shot .434 from the field, .250 from three, and .652 from the line. MSU shot just .364 overall, .267 from the three, and .632 from the line.
The Bengals now head to Missoula for Montana's senior night on Saturday afternoon at 4:37 pm in a game broadcast on Altitude Sports.
NOTES: ISU outscored MSU off turnovers 14-5 and ISU committed just six overall, and only one in the first half ... ISU led for the final 30:02 of the game ... ISU improved to 2-13 on the road this season ... Austin Kilpatrick was a perfect 3-for-3 from the field ... ISU was outblocked 4-1 ... the win in Bozeman was ISU's first since 2004.
