History was made last night in Memorial Gym, as the Vandal men knocked off #25 Portland and football coach Robb Akey stepped to the floor at halftime and announced Idaho’s acceptance of a berth in the 2009 Humanitarian Bowl. It’s been a banner year for Idaho sports already, and we’re just at the halfway mark.
Here’s the links for today:
Basketball
- With their best defensive performance of the year, the Vandal men captured their first win over a nationally-ranked team since 1982 by crushing #25 Portland, 68-48. We’ve got complete coverage with a game recap/video interviews and photos from Nick Groff. Stat guru John Gasaway wonders what happened to the Pilots while SWX Right Now has video highlights. The Arg’s Jennifer Schlake has a story, too.
- It wasn’t such a great night for Idaho’s women, as they fell to Saint Mary’s in the Sunday matinee. A hot start and big lead were once again squandered, Ilya Pinchuk writes.
- The rest of the WAC finally had a good day, too, as Fresno State manhandled San Diego and Hawaii beat Lamar in a total team performance, fueled by 20 points and 20 rebounds from Petrus Balocka. (h/t on both of these to Parsing the WAC)
- The New Mexico State Aggies are having an awful season, just 1-5 against Division I opponents and staring down the barrel of two tough road games. Jason Groves of the Las Cruces Sun-News looks at the Aggies’ total lack of offense.
- Idaho stays No. 1 in Chris Murray’s WAC Power Rankings, and the Reno Gazette-Journal writer says the 5-2 Vandals are off to the best start in the conference.
Football
- The Vandals accepted their first bowl bid in more than a decade, and will play Bowling Green on Dec. 30 in the Roady’s Humanitarian Bowl, the Spokesman-Review’s Josh Wright reports. The Lewiston Tribune’s Jesse Baumgartner has more notes-n-quotes. The Toledo Blade’s Donald Emmons has a look from the Falcons’ perspective. We were tied up with basketball coverage during the press conference, but rest assured we’ll have some analysis of the upcoming game this week and next.
- Amazingly, absurdly, coach Robb Akey was denied WAC Coach of the Year honors. Unbelievable. However, NFL-bound Mike Iupati and safety Shiloh Keo were deserving First Team All-WAC selections. Max Komar, JoJo Dickson, Irv Stevens, Aaron Lavarias and Trey Farquhar got Second Team nods.
- John Feinstein utterly destroys the BCS in his Washington Post column.
- ESPN’s Graham Watson breaks down all four of the WAC’s bowl matchups: Idaho vs. Bowling Green in the Humanitarian Bowl, Boise State vs. TCU in the Fiesta Bowl, Fresno State vs. Wyoming in the New Mexico Bowl and Nevada vs. SMU in the Hawaii Bowl.
