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POCATELLO, Idaho- The Idaho State men's basketball team battled Washington State from Pac-12 Conference tough on the road before losing 80-68 on Friday evening.
"We did make improvements tonight," Idaho State coach
Bill Evans said. "We did a better job of taking care of the ball and our field goal percentage was much better tonight."
Chris Hansen scored a season-high 28 points on 10-of-18 shooting and hit four 3-pointers.
Jeffrey Solarin had 10 points and five rebounds.
Nnamdi Ezenwa scored eight points and grabbed a team-high six rebounds.
Idaho State shot 48 percent from the field and held the Cougars to 40 percent. ISU had only 10 turnovers while WSU had nine. Washington State did out rebound ISU 42-29.
"The biggest thing tonight that was disappointing was we didn't rebound well," Evans said.
The contest was close the entire way as there were nine ties and six lead changes.
ISU fell behind 15-6 early in the first half before the Bengals rallied to take a 20-19 lead with 6:04 left in the first half thanks to two free throws by Hansen. Each team exchanged leads in the final minutes of the first half before the Washington State went into the half leading 32-31.
"We were running good stuff to the right guys," Evans said. "Chris did a good job of making some shots."
With the score tied at 41 four minutes into the second half, Washington State went on a 15-5 run to take a 56-46 lead with 9:58 left in the game. The closest the Bengals came the rest of the way was cutting the WSU lead to 67-61 with five minutes left in the game.
The Bengals host Utah Valley University on November 26 at 7 p.m. in Reed Gym.
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