With a defender on her hip, Krissy Karr drove left and put up a 6-foot jump shot that made its way through the hoop as time expired to give the third-seeded Idaho women’s basketball team a 57-55 Western Athletic Conference tournament quarterfinal win on Wednesday afternoon over sixth-seeded San Jose State at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas.

“That wasn’t the play that was called,” Karr said of the final possession. “But then I heard Coach Newlee say ‘go, go,’ so I just went for it and I got the lucky bounce.”

The buzzer-beater capped a 15-point comeback for Idaho, as the Vandals (15-15) dug themselves into a 26-11 hole 12 minutes into the game.

“We talked after the Seattle U game about buzzer-beaters and how we were on the bad end of it,” Idaho coach Jon Newlee said, as his team’s last three losses each came by two points. “When we got to Las Vegas, we talked in the locker room about if that situation came up, it would be our turn to hit the shot. Our players embraced that and Krissy certainly did in the end.”

The game was tied at 55-all for nearly three minutes, with neither team able to pull ahead. With one minute left, Idaho had the ball with a chance to go ahead but Stacey Barr was called for a charge, giving the Spartans the ball with 44 seconds remaining. San Jose State’s (11-19) Riana Byrd was fouled with 15 seconds to play, but missed both free throws, and Idaho’s Ali Forde grabbed the rebound, and the Vandals took timeout to draw up a final play.

Idaho advances to the WAC semifinals for the second consecutive season and will face Utah State (18-12) at noon on Friday.

BIG SKY

Lexie Nelson scored 18 points and Kylie Huerta had 12 points and nine assists for the third-seeded Eastern Washington Eagles in a 68-53 win against the sixth-seeded Montana State Bobcats in the quarterfinals of the Big Sky tournament in Missoula.

Eastern Washington (19-11) will face No. 2 seed Northern Colorado (19-11) Friday at 11 a.m. PDT in the semifinals.

“I thought defense really keyed our offensive effort in the second half,” Eastern Washington coach Wendy Schuller said. “I thought we did a good job putting pressure on them and getting our hands on some balls. That maybe got them a little frustrated, and then we were able to get into the open floor and run.”

Montana State was led by Kallie Durham, Ashley Brumwell and Rachel Semansky with eight points each and former Gonzaga Prep standout Lindsay Stockton with six rebounds.