The University of Idaho men’s basketball team stumbled against UC Irvine on Thursday at CenturyLink Arena, but the expectations remain the same heading into the start of Big Sky Conference play later this month.
“Obviously, we’ve got high hopes. We’ve got a very good basketball team,” Idaho men’s coach Don Verlin said after his Vandals’ 67-59 loss to the Anteaters (5-10). “We’ve got a basketball team that can defend it and rebound at a pretty high level. Like I told our guys, we’ve had a pretty decent preseason. It’s a little bittersweet because we probably played our best basketball game that we’ve played all year Monday night, and then come here and not play quite as well.