Fresno State 69, Idaho 53
FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- Eddie Miller matched career highs with 27 points and seven three-pointers as Fresno State defeated Idaho 69-53 on Saturday night in a Western Athletic Conference game.
Kevin Bell added 17 points and seven assists for Fresno State (9-8 overall, 2-1 WAC), which committed only four turnovers and limited the Vandals to 32.3 percent shooting.
Jordan Brooks had 16 points and 16 rebounds for Idaho (4-11, 1-3). Leading scorer Mike Hall added 12 points but made just 4 of 17 field goal attempts.
Trailing by nine points at halftime, the Vandals kept Fresno State within striking distance until Miller unleashed a 3-point barrage midway through the second half.
Miller hit consecutive 3s to put the Bulldogs ahead 50-40 with 7:46 remaining, then added a third for a 13-point Fresno State lead with 6:31 left. Miller finished 7 of 12 from beyond the arc.
Idaho trimmed the deficit to 59-50 on Hall's 3-pointer with 3:58 left. But the Vandals could get no closer.
On the ensuing possession, Fresno State's Nedeljko Golubovic drove the lane for a layup, drew a foul on Michael Crowell and converted the three-point play.
The Vandals' poor shooting couldn't overcome their advantage on the boards, including a 16-7 edge on the offensive end.
The Bulldogs led 33-24 at halftime thanks in large part to Miller's outside shooting. The senior guard had 15 first-half points, including three 3-pointers.
Both teams struggled from the field in the first half. Fresno State shot 33.3 percent and Idaho shot 30.3 percent.
Utah State 74, New Mexico State 62
LOGAN, Utah - One streak continued while another was stopped and history was tied Saturday night with Utah State's 74-62 win over New Mexico State in Western Athletic Conference action at the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum. The navy-clad Aggies won their seventh in a row while stopping the maroon Aggies' four-game win streak and USU head coach Stew Morrill tied E.Lowell Romney for the most wins in school history with his 225th victory.
Utah State also knocked NMSU from atop the WAC standings and the navy Aggies take over the conference lead with a 2-0 league record while New Mexico State now has a 3-1 WAC mark.
USU improved to 12-5 overall in winning for the 10th time in last 12 games, while NMSU fell to 9-10 overall.
The northern Aggies also remain the only team in the league unbeaten at home with a 10-0 ledger this season and USU improves to 15-3 at home all-time against WAC teams.
Morrill is now 225-80 in his 10th season as Utah State head coach, tying Romney (1920-41) from the most wins in school history.
Junior forward Gary Wilkinson (South Jordan, Utah) tallied team highs of 18 points and eight rebounds while senior All-American guard Jaycee Carroll (Evanston, Wyo.) tossed in 15 points and senior forward Stephen DuCharme (Andover, Kan.) added 13 points and seven rebounds off the bench. The home team's bench outscored its counterparts, 26-5. Freshman forward Tai Wesley (Provo, Utah) also snagged seven rebounds as USU had a slight, 41-40, rebounding edge.
Carroll now has 2,097 career points, leaving him 30 points shy of tying Greg Grant (1983-86) for the school's scoring record of 2,127 points.
New Mexico State was led by Jonathan Gibson's 22 points including five three-pointers, netting 15 points after halftime. Fred Peete added 16 points, while Wendell McKines pulled down a game-high 11 rebounds.
NMSU hit just 24-of-68 (35.3 percent) from the field, including 8-of-30 (26.7 percent) behind the three-point arc and were 6-of-9 (66.7 percent) from the charity stripe. The 30 three-point attempts were a new season-high for a USU opponent.
Saturday was a game of runs, as the home Aggies went on a 7-0 spurt to open 16-6 lead but the visitors later countered with their own 11-0 streak to take a 21-20 lead on a Gibson layup with 8:23 left in the first half.
That would be NMSU's last lead of the night, as an old-fashioned three-point play from Wilkinson sparked a 7-0 USU run that Carroll capped with a jumper to make the scoreboard read 27-21 with 6:39 on the first stanza clock. The navy Aggies extended their lead to 35-25 at intermission, as USU improved to 11-2 when leading at the half and NMSU fell to 0-7 when trailing at the break.
The visiting Aggies whittled the deficit and tied the score at 46-all with 11:12 on the clock after a dunk by Martin Iti.
That's when junior guard Desmond Stephens (Bloomington, Ind.) took over, hitting a three-pointer from the left wing at the 10:36 mark. On USU's ensuing possession, Carroll drained a trey from almost the same spot as Stephens' and junior guard DeUndrae Spraggins (East St. Louis, Ill.) joined in the three-point H-O-R-S-E contest from the same spot off an assist from Stephens.
A pair of Wesley free throws and another Stephens trey, this time from the top of the arc, sandwiched around a McKines layup gave the home Aggies their largest lead of the night at 60-48 with 7:01 left.
As they had done all night up to that point, the visiting Aggies charged back with 12 unanswered points to knot the score at 60's with 4:49 on the clock after back-to-back three's from Gibson followed by a Peete trey.
Leading 62-61 with 4:17 remaining, USU closed out the game with a 12-1 run, started with a DuCharme jumper and ended by a Wilkinson layup for the victory.
Nevada 77, Hawai?i 59
HONOLULU (AP) - Marcelus Kemp scored a season-high 29 points to lead Hawaii to a 77-59 win over Nevada in Honolulu Saturday night.
Brandon Fields added 14 points for the Wolf Pack (9-6, 1-1 Western Athletic Conference) and Armon Johnson had 11.
Matt Gibson led Hawaii (5-10, 1-2 WAC) with 22 points, the only Rainbow Warrior in double-figures scoring.
Trailing by as much as 12 points in the first half, Nevada fought back late in the first with a 17-2 run to go up 27-24 on Fields' 3-pointer with 1:29 to go in the half. The Wolf Pack led 31-28 at the break.
Nevada opened the second half on an 11-3 run to take a 42-31 lead with 15:01 remaining. Hawaii responded with a 7-0 spurt of its own to pull to within four, 42-38, with 13:15 to go.
But the Wolf Pack answered right back with its own 7-0 spurt and the Rainbows would get no closer the rest of the way.
Hawaii, which averages nearly 20 free throw attempts per game, did not take a single foul shot in the first half. The Rainbows finished the game 8-of-14 from the line.
Boise State 81, Louisiana Tech 66
BOISE, Idaho - Reggie Larry scored 25 points and grabbed 15 rebounds to lead Boise State to an 81-66 win over Louisiana Tech in Western Athletic Conference play at Taco Bell Arena Saturday night.
Larry made 10-of-14 shots, while dishing out three assists and blocking three shots to lead Boise State (12-4, 3-1 WAC) to the win. Larry combined with Matt Nelson (22 points, five assists) and Tyler Tiedeman (15 points, four assists) to score 62 of the Broncos points.
Nelson converted on 8-of-11 shots, while Tiedeman made 4-of-6 3-pointers.
The Broncos, who headed into the game second in the nation in field goal percentage, made 50.9 percent of their field goal attempts. They also outrebounded the Bulldogs 39-25.
Drew Washington led Louisiana Tech (3-12, 0-3 WAC) with 20 points, while Kyle Gibson added 18.