HOUSTON - It was a tale of two halves on Sunday, as the Idaho men followed its season-opening win at Utah with a disappointing 72-65 loss at Texas Southern.
Idaho (1-1), led by as many as eight points in the first half, but 11 second-half turnovers gave Texas Southern (1-1) the opportunities it needed to take the lead and hold on late.
"We just didn't do what we needed to do," Idaho coach Don Verlin said. "When your team has two assists and [18] turnovers, that's not good enough to win. For as good as we played on Friday night, I thought we played just as bad tonight."
While Idaho's bench produced 43 points in Friday's 94-87 win at Utah, the team got just 18 from its non-starters on Sunday. The biggest key on Sunday, though, was turnovers. The Tigers outscored Idaho by a 20-point margin in points off turnovers, 29-9. During a three-minute stretch, starting at 9:12 in the second half, Idaho had six turnovers on six offensive possessions, during which TSU turned a 54-50 lead into a 60-50 lead.
"I thought our effort was good, I just don't think our execution was very good, especially on the offensive end," Verlin said.
Idaho managed to battle back and get within one point at 64-63 at the 2:23 mark, but missed its final five shots from the field, turned it over once, and committed six fouls and added just two more points on a pair of Luciano de Souza free throws with 15 seconds remaining.
"Obviously, you've got to give some credit to Texas Southern," Verlin said. "They did a nice job in forcing us into some turnovers and taking advantage of our mistakes down the stretch."
Seniors Mac Hopson and Kashif Watson led Idaho with 14 and 13 points, respectively, but no other Idaho player reached double-digits. Hopson was held without an assist for the first time in his Idaho career. Center Marvin Jefferson grabbed eight rebounds, scored eight points and blocked three shots.
Idaho finished the game with just two assists, while Texas Southern had six. The Vandals turned it over 18 times, 11 of which were TSU steals. Idaho had six steals and the Tigers had 13 turnovers. Idaho shot .420 from the field on 21-of-50 shooting, but TSU shot a .451 clip, with 23-of-51 shots going in. TSU also outscored Idaho 21-17 from the free throw line.
Leading 10-8 at the 13:49 mark of the first half, Idaho looked like it would take control of the game early when Shawn Henderson and Steffan Johnson led the Vandals to a 10-4 run to go up 20-12, but TSU responded right away with a 7-0 run of its own to get back to 20-19 at the 6:56 mark.
After Idaho went into the half leading 32-30, the second half started off just as tightly as the first half ended. Idaho maintained a one-possession lead for most of the first seven minutes, but TSU's Travele Jones drew a foul at the 13:07 mark and sank both free throws to give the Tigers a lead that they would not relinquish.
The Vandals will have six days to regroup before facing yet another difficult early-season road test. Idaho will hit the road for the third straight game to face North Dakota State, UI's second 2009 NCAA Tournament team in three games.
