Bengals Play at Portland on Tuesday

Men's Basketball | 12/7/2015 3:29:00 PM

Notes | Audio | Live Stats | Video

POCATELLO, Idaho- The Idaho State men's basketball team continues its road trip in Portland, Ore., with an 8 p.m. mountain time tipoff at the University of Portland. Jerry Miller will call the action live on 101.1 KEIR.  To follow the game online with live video, audio and stats log onto isubengals.com. The Bengals then return home to host Utah Valley of the Western Athletic Conference on Saturday, Dec. 12.

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.

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 4-5 and 3-1 at home. The Pilots are averaging 79.2 points a game and allowing 76.7 points. Portland is shooting .446 percent from the field, .393 from the three-point line, .604 from the free throw line, averaging 35.8 rebounds, 15.2 assists and turning the ball over 13 times a game. Alec Wintering leads the team in scoring at 14.4 points a game while Bryce Pressley is averaging 12.4 points and 5.1 rebounds.

Scouting Utah Valley
Utah Valley is 2-6 and scoring 70 points a game. Konner Frey leads UVU in scoring at 15.5 points and 7.3 rebounds a game. Marcel Davis is scoring 11 points and Jaden Jackson is netting 10.3. The Wolverines are shooting .418 percent from the field, .314 percent from the three-point line and averaging 38 rebounds a game, while dishing out 12.9 assists and turning it over 16.3 times a game. Utah Valley has already played two Big Sky Conference schools at home, losing to Montana State 76-72 and SUU 68-54. UVU plays host to Weber State on Dec. 9 before traveling to Pocatello.

Series vs. Utah Valley
Idaho State leads the series 4-3 but the two teams played twice last year and UVU won both meetings. The Wolverines won 60-57 in Pocatello and 51-47 in Orem.

Long Range
Through the first six games Idaho State is shooting .386 percent from the 3-point line and has made 61 3's on 158 attempts. Last year through the first six games ISU was 31-108 from beyond the arc and shooting .287 percent. It took the Bengals 12 games to make 56 3-pointers last year. The 56 3's were made on 200 attempts.

Scoring the Ball
Since the 2004-05 season there have been two teams average more than 70 points a game. The 2005-06 team scored 78.7 points a game and the 2013-14 team netted 70.8 points. This year's team is scoring 77.7 points a contest. The 77.7 points a contest right now would rank as the 17th best average in ISU history. The school record for most points averaged per game is 90.5 by the 1965-66 team.

On the flip side, ISU is allowing 84.2 points a game. That mark would rank sixth all-time in ISU history for most points allowed per-game.

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 2009-108 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 The Last Two Games
Lamar 82 Idaho State 70
 The contest had 15 ties and 14 lead changes.  Ali Faruq-Bey led the Bengals with 16 points. He scored 10 of his 16 points from the free throw line. Kyle Ingram led ISU with 15 points on seven-of-eight shooting from the field. He also grabbed four rebounds. Geno Luzcando had 11 points. ISU shot 41.5 percent from the field but was held to 21 percent shooting from the three-point line (4-19).

For the first time this season the Bengals out rebounded their opponent, winning the battle of the boards 37-32. Ben Wilson had a team-best seven rebounds. ISU turned the ball over 16 times to Lamar's 11.

Idaho State built an 11-point lead at 30-19 with 7:21 left until halftime following a 3-pointer by Gary Chivichyan. The final seven minutes of the half belonged to Lamar as the Cardinals went on a 20-6 run to lead 39-36 at the break.

The Bengals had three one-point leads in the first four minutes of the second half and held a 50-47 lead following a Chivichyan 3-pointer with 14:35 left in the game.
ISU later led 54-53 following two free throws by Faruq-Bey two minutes later but that would be the last lead of the game. With the score tied at 59 with 10 minutes left, Lamar went on a 9-2 run to take a 68-61 lead with 6:49 to play.

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.