A Cool 41 Leads Bengals to 89-79 Win at Air Force

POCATELLO, Idaho- Tarik Cook had the 14^th best single-game performance in Idaho State history with a career-high 41 points to lead the Bengals to an 89-79 win at Air Force on Thursday night at Clune Arena in Colorado Springs, Colo.

His 41 points was the most since Lawrence Butler scored 41 points on Feb. 10, 1979 vs. UNLV and it was the sixth most points Air Force has allowed an opposing player.

"We celebrated a win," Idaho State coach Ryan Looney said. "We have to start that tradition in our program. Anytime you go on the road and win, regardless of opponent, that needs to be celebrated. We threw a 60 second party in the locker room. We have a much better taste in our mouth than we did Tuesday night leaving Wyoming."

Cool scored his 41 points on 11-17 shooting from the field. He was a perfect 15-15 from the free throw line to go along with 4-8 shooting from the three-point line. He added five rebounds and three assists to his stat line.

"Our guys did a good job in bounding to him in our press offense," Looney said. "It is designed to get it to our point guard. We were doing a good job getting it out of first trap and later in the half court getting it back to the point guard where he was finding himself getting fouled in those situations. He did a fantastic job knocking it all down."

Chier Maker had 21 points and eight rebounds. He was 8-14 from the field and 4-8 from the three-point line. Jared Stutzman added 11 points.

The Bengals shot 50 percent for the game (28-56) and made 12 3-pointers on 29 attempts. Idaho State was also 21-25 from the free throw line.

"After the game on Tuesday, into practice on Wednesday and shoot around today and into all the film we watched we really challenged our guys to buy into what we are trying to teach on offense," Looney said. "We knew at some point it was going to come. Was it going to come here at Air Force? Was it going to come next week playing a home game? Was it going to come three months later in conference play? Was it going to come next season? At some point the guys wearing the jerseys were going to have to decide to buy in. To our guys credit they did it from start to finish tonight."

Idaho State out rebounded the Falcons 31-26 and had only 12 turnovers.

"Rebounding is a big part of what we will do," Looney said. "We won the rebounding margin against a much bigger team. Both teams shot a pretty good percentage but we got to shoot it six more times than they did because of our rebounding and our ability to take care of the ball."

Idaho State led for 30 minutes and 38 seconds of the game. Idaho State led 42-31 at halftime thanks 19 points from Chier Maker.

Idaho State jumped out to an early 13-8 lead in first four minutes of the game thanks to six points from Cool and five from Maker. Stutzman later hit a 3-pointer to give the Bengals a 16-10 lead. Air Force countered with a 7-0 run to lead 17-16 with 13:47 left in the first half.

The Bengals then took control with a 11-2 run to lead 27-19 with seven minutes left in the first half after a layup by Austin Smellie. Cool would score the final five points of the first half to give ISU the 42-31 halftime lead.

"We were running offense harder," Looney said.  "Guys were screening better. The ball was moving faster and magically guys were standing wide open."

Air Force made a second-half run to take a 57-53 lead with 9:12 left in the game and 59-57 a minute later. Stutzman then made a 3-pointer with 7:51 to play that gave Idaho State the lead for good at 60-59.

ISU extended its lead to 70-63 after a Smellie 3-pointer with 5:23 to play. Air Force got no closer than three points at 76-73 with 2:14 left in the game.

Cool would score the final eight Bengal points from the foul line to help secure the victory.

It is the second year in a row Idaho State has defeated a Mountain West Conference team. Last year ISU defeated Boise State 72-70.

Idaho State returns to the court to host Montana Western on Nov. 14.