POCATELLO, Idaho -- The Thunderbird men's basketball team competed in their first road Big Sky Conference matchup of the season on Thursday night, and ultimately fell to the Bengals of Idaho State 88-68.  

"We played a very hot Idaho State team, and we were ice cold," SUU head coach Todd Simon said. "We're overcoming some injuries. We've got some guys getting some experience and need to step up, and tonight we got 84 minutes our of our four freshman and they're going to continue to get better."

Brandon Better hit the first shot of the night, as he knocked home a triple for the Thunderbirds to kick off the night. The Bengals, however, responded with a quick 8-0 run to take an early lead. It was a lead they wouldn't give up, either, as they continued to build their lead and took a 16 point advantage into the break.

"Our whole emphasis was to not give up threes, and right out of the gate they got six in the first five or six minutes," Simon said. "They were hot, they made shots, the loose balls seemed to find them, and every time they had any look at all the ball fell for them tonight."  

The T-Birds played a much tighter contest in the second half, but still got outscored 39-35 in the final 20 minutes.

Cameron Oluyitan led the scoring effort for the Thunderbirds, putting up 12 points. Andre Adams was second on the team with 10 points, and finished the night with a double-double securing 10 rebounds.

Freshmen Kenton Eskridge and Maizen Fausett both finished the night with nine points coming off the bench.

"They played hard and they finished in a game that we weren't finishing great," Simon said. "They gave us energy and they'll continue to earn more time with that energy and effort."

As a team the Thunderbirds shot 35 percent from the field and 12 percent from behind the three-point line.

Brandon Boyd led the Bengals in scoring with 20 points on the evening.

The Thunderbirds will continue their road swing on Saturday in Ogden as they square off against in-state rival Weber State at 7 p.m.

"We're just going to keep getting better," Simon said. "We're an evolving team and we've got to focus on ourselves and what we can do to eliminate some mistakes. More so our opponent is ourselves right now, but Weber's obviously very talented. A lot of elite players, guys that are returners, so their experience is something we'll have to overcome."

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Read all about the Thunderbirds on www.suutbirds.com.

Individual game tickets for the 2018-19 Season are available at www.tbirdtickets.com or at the America First Event Center Ticket Office.