POCATELLO, Idaho -- The Thunderbird men's basketball team picked up a road victory against Big Sky Conference foe Idaho State on Thursday evening, topping the Bengals 71-55 in Reed Gym.
With the victory the Thunderbirds move to 10-5 on the season, and 3-1 in Big Sky Conference play. Two of those three Big Sky victories have come on the road.
"It's tough to win on the road in this league, but if we want to compete for a championship these are the type of games that we need to pull out," SUU head coach Todd Simon said. "We always say defense travels, and we were pretty happy with ours today.
The Thunderbirds started hot, and used an early 11-0 run to take a 20-6 lead over the Bengals.
Idaho State responded quickly. After a few minutes back-and-forth, they embarked on an 8-0 run, and followed that up with another 6-0 run to cut the Thunderbird lead to three at the under-four media timeout.
During that stretch, the T-Birds went over four minutes without putting a point on the scoreboard.
Despite the Bengal comeback, the T-Birds fought to keep the lead into the break, holding a 33-29 advantage.
The Thunderbirds turned it on the second half. They shot 64 percent from the field in the second half, going 14-of-22, and outscored the Bengals 38-26 over the final 20 minutes.
"We challenged them a little bit at the half, because we thought we didn't finish the first 20 minutes particularly well," Simon said. "We got shots we liked, we just didn't hit them, and we thought we were giving up a little too much on the other end of the floor. And they stepped up to the challenge in the second half."
Southern Utah held Idaho State to 33 percent shooting from the field, and finished 8-of-29 in the second half.
Cameron Oluyitan led the offensive charge for the T-Birds, finishing with 20 points to go along with six rebounds and two assists. Oluyitan logged 40 minutes in the contest.
"He was playing great defense, and he does so much for us out there on both ends of the floor," Simon said. "He ended up having a fantastic night."
John Knight III finished with 15 points for SUU off the bench, while Dwayne Morgan scored 13 in the same role.
Southern Utah's bench outscored Idaho State's by a large margin, 36-16.
The T-Birds will be back in the America First Event Center next Thursday, as they'll face off against rival Northern Arizona at 7 p.m. MT. The contest will be broadcast on Eleven Sports.
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