BOISE, Idaho -- For the third straight season the Thunderbird men's basketball team have advanced out of the First Round of the Big Sky Conference Tournament, knocking off Idaho State 94-80.
The T-Birds now advance to the Second Round, where they'll match up against the No. 2 seeded Bears of Northern Colorado.
The Bengals started very hot, and the T-Birds weren't able to keep up early on as ISU jumped out to a 15-4 lead. Within five minutes, however, the T-Birds climbed all the way back and the contest was tied at 20-20 with just over 10 minutes to play in the opening half. The remainder of the second half was a back-and-forth contest, which resulted in the Bengals leading by one at the break 41-40.
The second half is when the T-Birds came alive. With just under 12 minutes to play SUU built a 10 point advantage, and pushed it to as many as 17. Ultimately, the T-Birds outscored the Bengals 54-39 in the second half to run away with the victory late. Â Â Â Â
"I'm really proud of our guys' effort, especially after we stubbed our toe to start the game we bounced back really well," SUU head coach Todd Simon said. "I thought our poise was really good, and to our player's credit I thought they executed the game plan very well and once we made the adjustment to go zone they played very hard in that."
Andre Adams had a huge contest for the Thunderbirds, scoring 23 points and pulling down eight rebounds. That point total matches his career high for the Thunderbirds.
Senior Brandon Better finished with 17 points, shooting 5-of-6 from behind the three point line.
As a team the T-Birds shot 11-of-15 from three, which was a major factor in the contest.
Jacob Calloway finished with 15 points, while Harrison Butler poured in 13. Dre Marin had 10 points and five assists for the T-Birds.
"In the beginning I was a little nervous, my palms were sweaty and stuff, but as I started playing it just became a normal game for me," Butler said.
The Thunderbirds will make preparations for the Bears of Northern Colorado. SUU and UNC will square off on Thursday evening at 5:30 p.m. MT.
UNC won the season series against the T-Birds 2-0. Â
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Plays of the Game
