Men's Basketball Plays at Lamar on Dec. 5

Men's Basketball | 12/2/2015 5:47:00 PM

Game Notes | Audio | Live Stats | Video

POCATELLO, Idaho- The Idaho State men's basketball team  returns to the road for a 7 p.m. contest at the University of Lamar. The game can be heard live on 101.1 KEIR with Jerry Miller calling the action. To follow the game on line with video, audio and live stats fans can log onto isubengals.com. The road trip continues Dec. 8 at Portland.

The Bengals enter the 2015-16 season with five returning players with Division I experience. The only returning starter is Ben Wilson.  Evan Hall, Geno Luzcando, Erik Nakken and Justin Smith are the returning Bengals with playing experience.

Spencer Nicolds and Novak Topalovic were on the team last year but redshirted while Clint Nwosuh, Ethan Telfair, Gary Chivichyan, Brandon Boyd, Ali Faruq-Bey, Stephen Lennox, Xavier Banks and Kyle Ingram will see their first Division I action as Bengals.

Scouting  Lamar
Lamar is 2-3 and averaging 80.6 points a game while giving up 74. Lamar is shooting .413 from the field, .302 from the three-point line, .727 from the free throw line, averaging 15.2 assists  and 16.2 turnovers a game. Lincoln Davis leads the team in scoring at 12.8 points a game while Kevin Booze and Nick Garth are averaging 12.6.

Series vs. Lamar
This is the first meeting between the two schools.

Series vs. Portland
The series is tied at 10. Portland has won the last four meetings with the most recent game being a 51-48 victory over ISU in Portland on Nov. 15, 2012. ISU's last victory over Portland was during the 2001-02 season. The Bengals played twice that season, winning both in overtime, 83-79 in Pocatello and 96-90 in overtime in Portland.

Scouting Portland
Portland is 3-4 and 3-0 at home. The Pilots are averaging 80.6 points a game and allowing 76.7 points. Portland is shooting .447 percent from the field, .415 from the three-point line, .582 from the free throw line, averaging 34.7 rebounds, 15.9 assists and turning the ball over 12.9 times a game. Bryce Pressley leads the team in scoring at 13.6 points while Alec Wintering is scoring 11.9 points a game.

Long Range
Through the first five games Idaho State is shooting .410 percent from the 3-point line and has made 57 3's on 139 attempts. Last year through the first five games ISU was 28-89 from beyond the arc and shooting .315 percent. It took the Bengals 12 games to make 56 3-pointers last year. The 56 3's were made on 200 attempts.

Did You Know
Since the 2007-08 season ISU has four road nonconference wins over Division I teams. The Bengals won at Idaho, 71-69 in overtime on Dec. 1, 2007, 68-65 at UMKC during the 2009-10 season, 93-90 in overtime at San Francisco during the 2013-14 season and 67-51 at Grand Canyon last year.

Recapping Game 5 at Utah
The Idaho State men's basketball team lost 102-72 in Salt Lake City. Ali Faruq-Bey led the Bengal scoring with 18 points. Geno Luzcando had 11 and Ethan Telfair had 10 points and five assists. Idaho State (2-3) shot 37.7 percent from the field while Utah (5-1) finished the night shooting 60 percent. The Bengals were 10-19 from the 3-point line and 16-19 from the free throw line. ISU was out rebounded 42-25 and had 13 assists to 16 turnovers. The Utes were 9-19 from the three-point line and 21-24 from the free throw line. Utah had 20 assists to 14 turnovers. The game was close early but with ISU trailing 24-20 nine minutes into the game, Utah went on a 33-8 to end the half and lead 57-28 at the break.