McGowen Scores Career-High 30 to Lead Bengals Past Montana State
BY STEVE SCHAACK-ISU MEDIA RELATIONS
POCATELLO, Idaho- Kenny McGowen scored a career-high 30 points and scored the game-winning layup with 10 seconds left in overtime to lift Idaho State to its fourth-straight win and an 87-86 victory at Montana State on Thursday night. The win moves the Bengals into third place in the conference at 6-4, tied with Montana State. ISU improved its overall record to 8-14 while Montana State dropped to 11-10.
The Bengals finished with four players in double figures. After McGowen’s 30, Chase Grabau had 16, Abner Moreira had a career-high 14 points while Andre Hatchett scored 12. McGowen was 9-for-18 from the field and made 7-of-14 3-pointers.
“Kenny stepped up and made big shots,” Idaho State Interim Head Coach Deane Martin said. “We are going to use him for all we can. We will get every shot out of him we can because there is no next year for him. He is really doing a good job.”
Idaho State shot 49.2 percent from the field while Montana State made 45.8 percent of its shot attempts. The Bengals took care of the ball turning the ball over only 10 times to the Bobcats 15. In the first half, ISU had only three turnovers.
“When a team only turns the ball over three in the first half, that is a team that knows what they are doing,” Martin said. “You have a group of guys that want to win a game and it showed in the first half.”
It was McGowen, who gave the Bengals a shot at the end of regulation to win the game when he hit a 3-pointer with 16 seconds left to give ISU a 77-75 lead. Montana State then came back and tied the game at 77 when Tre Johnson scored on a dunk with four seconds left.
In the overtime period, ISU fell behind 83-79 with 3:30 left in the extra stanza. The Bengals then scored the next six points to take an 85-83 lead with 1:49 remaining after a 3 by McGowen, a free throw by Hatchett and a jumper by Melvin Morgan.
MSU came back and took an 86-85 lead with 24 seconds remaining before McGowen made his game-winning layup. Montana State had one last attempt fall short as the clock expired.
Idaho State returns to the court on Monday, Feb. 6 at Montana. Tipoff is at 7 p.m. and the game can be heard live on 930 KSEI with Jerry Miller calling the action.
Bengals Drop 79-67 Decision in Overtime to MSU
BY JAIME SCHROEDER-ISU MEDIA RELATIONS
POCATELLO, Idaho – Idaho State dropped its first conference game of the season to Montana State, 79-67 in overtime Thursday night in Reed Gym in front of a crowd of 1,337. The Bengals drop to 8-1 in Big Sky Conference play and are 16-6 overall while the Bobcats improve to 15-7 overall and 7-3 in conference action. The Bengals remain in first place in the Big Sky.
Kaela Oakes led the Bengals in scoring with 17, shooting 6-for-14 from the field. Chelsea Pickering put in a double-double night with 15 points and 10 rebounds, shooting 5-for-20 from the field. Pickering’s 10 rebounds led the team in that stat.
The team shot 5-for-26 from the three point line. Oakes and Pickering each had two and Kara Jenkins had one.
Overall, ISU shot 22-for-69 from the field (31.9 percent) and turned the ball over 16 times. Montana State shot 25-for-63 from the field (39.7 percent). The Bengals were 18-for-26 from the free throw line. ISU missed four free throws in the final minute of the game to leave the door open for MSU to tie it up at 65 at the end of regulation.
“Free throws down the stretch really start to add up,” ISU Head Coach Seton Sobolewski said. “We had two trips to the line where we missed our free throws and it really impacted the game, making it a two-point game as opposed to a three or four-point game. In the second half we shot 53 percent from the free throw line and that really hurt us.”
ISU led by as much as 16 points in the contest, but slowly let that slip away as the Bobcat’s Katie Bussey tallied up a career-high 41 points leading the way to as much as a 14-point Montana State lead in overtime play. Bussey’s 41 points tied the Big Sky single game record.
“That was definitely was one of the best performance we have seen in Reed Gym by a single player in the last four years,” Sobolewski said. “She is just a fantastic talent. She can have games like that. Anything she threw near the basket went in, or we fouled her. She is such a tough match up. We did a great job on everybody else and to Bussey’s credit she really stepped up when her team needed her to.”
The Bengals will next host Montana (6-3 Big Sky, 14-7 overall) on Monday, Feb. 6 at 7:05 pm MST on the Idaho Central Credit Union Court in Reed Gym.
