Vandals face a (literal) tough task tonight in Houston

From wire and news services and local reports 

Getting tougher has been a goal of the Idaho men’s basketball team this season. 

But there is Big Sky Conference tough — and there is Houston tough. 

“Your scout team is not going to mimic the physicality of Houston,” third-year Idaho coach Alex Pribble said Wednesday, the day before his 15th-seeded Vandals (21-14) play the second-seeded Cougars (28-6) tonight (7 p.m., truTV) in the first round of the NCAA Tournament at the Paycom Center in Oklahoma City. 

“Coach (Kelvin) Sampson does such a great job with the identity of the program. There's actually a young man that I had the pleasure of coaching named Cameron Tyson. He went to Idaho as a freshman, and then he ended up going to Houston. When he came back — I actually coached him at Seattle University. When he came back to Seattle, he was a changed player. The toughness that he had, the chip that he played the game with, in terms of chip on his shoulder, you can just tell that what coach Sampson does with everybody in their program is really special. It's the reason why their program is studied so much, and a lot of coaches look to that program in terms of how they practice and just their day-to-day standards to learn.” 

Idaho is playing in the NCAA tourney for the first time since 1990. Houston was the national runner-up last year.

Pribble was a member of California’s 2006 NCAA tournament squad, and guided St. Martin’s to the Division II tournament twice. 

“In terms of my experience, the one that I'll actually rely on the most is when I was an assistant coach at Eastern Washington University. It's the last time I was coaching in the Division I NCAA Tournament (in 2015). And that experience — I learned that sometimes it takes a few minutes, maybe the first media timeout, maybe a couple of media timeouts, to settle in. And you've just got to coach the game possession by possession. You can't worry about the outcome too much early in the game. It's just next play, what adjustments do we need to make to try to be successful offensively or defensively those next four minutes.” 

In addition to Pribble, senior Trevon Blassingame and junior Jack Payne have NCAA tourney experience. 

Blassingame was a member of the 16th seed Fairleigh Dickinson when it upset top seed Purdue in the first round in 2023.  

Payne was a redshirt freshman at Colorado State in 2024, and played a couple minutes when the Rams beat Virginia (which included then-freshman Blake Buchanan from Lake City) in a First Four game. 

“I feel like what we've been working on these last couple of days is just making the right play every single time,” Idaho senior guard Isaiah Brickner said. “Houston is a super aggressive, defensive team. So being able to make simple plays and find open shots, find our guys for open shots. We have a skilled team, and everyone on this team can shoot. So just playing our brand of basketball is I feel like how we're going to be successful in this game.” 

Houston could eventually go back home for a rematch of last season's national championship game it lost to Florida. 

The South regional final would be played at the Toyota Center in Houston, just a few miles from the Fertitta Center where the Cougars play their home games. Though Florida is the top seed, the Gators might need to fight through a road environment against No. 2 seed Houston to get to the Final Four. 

Both have to win three games before that would happen, and Houston isn’t getting ahead of itself.  

“I mean, we got Idaho,” Houston guard Emanuel Sharp said. “(Playing in) Houston is not promised. We’re focused on what’s directly in front of us. You know, we have a good Idaho team that we have to play, and we’re going to use that game to win, get better, move on to whoever we play after that.” 

One of Sampson’s previous coaching stops was at Washington State (1987-94). 

Pribble said he’s never met Sampson, "but I tell you what, I've studied his program a lot,” Pribble said. “I've learned a lot from watching their game film. That's the kind of coach you want to be able to coach against. What a great situation to be able to go and put a scouting report together and kind of battle against a coach like him.”