Â
POCATELLO, Idaho- The Idaho State men's basketball team lost 62-54 to San Jose State on Wednesday night at the Event Center on the campus of San Jose State.
Jared Stutzman led the Bengals in scoring with 12 points in 15 minutes off the bench.
Geno Luzcando and
Gary Chivichyan each had 10 points.
Stutzman was informed Tuesday morning that he won his appeal with the NCAA to play immediately. He originally was not on the trip but boarded a plane Tuesday morning and landed in San Jose late afternoon.
"He has been practicing with us this entire time," Idaho State coach
Bill Evans said. "He is a hard worker and he is going to help us."
The Bengals shot 31.5 percent for the game and only 25 percent in the first half. San Jose State shot 39.6 percent. After shooting 24.2 percent in the first half, the Spartans shot 65 percent in the second half.
"Sometimes you have nights like that," Evans said. "Offensively if we would have played the way we played against Utah Valley or Arizona State we would have won the game. You need to give San Jose State some credit but we were not very good offensively. We were pretty good defensively in the first half. That was not the Mona Lisa of basketball."
Novak Topalovic had nine rebounds and Luzcando had four steals. ISU had 18 turnovers and 11 assists and San Jose State was forced into 20 turnovers. Idaho State made 13 of 18 free throws and San Jose State made 14 of 22 from the foul line.
Idaho State was out rebounded 44-30.
Scoring was hard to come by in the first half. ISU's led 3-0 on a three-point play by
Kyle Ingram and 7-4 after a layup by Luzcando with 15:14 left in the first half. The Bengals scored eight points the rest of the half and trailed 22-15 at the break.
San Jose State led by as many as 13 points at 41-28 with 8:52 left in the game. Idaho State got no closer than five points the rest of the way.
Idaho State plays at Seattle U on Nov. 27 at 8 p.m. mountain time.
Â
Â
