BOISE, Idaho – If you talk and listen to folks of a certain age from around the Big Sky Conference, you know that the University of Idaho has deep-seeded roots.
Heck, even if you know how to use Google and/or scan a Wikipedia page, you can read about all the exploits within the Big Sky Conference, particularly when it came to football and men’s basketball, for the Vandals of yesteryear.
In the early days of Division I-AA (founded in 1978), Idaho won six league championships in football (1981, 1982, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1992). But when Idaho left the Big Sky Conference following the 1996 season, the football program wandered aimlessly, trying to find a league and trying to earn any level of respect in the Football Bowl Subdivision.
A similar sense of anonymity trademarked Idaho basketball over the last 30-plus years. Under Don Monson, the Vandals were also one of the premier men’s basketball programs in all of the West, qualifying for the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament in 1982. That team reached as high as No. 6 in the nation in the Associated Press Top 25.
When Monson left for Oregon, Bill Trumbo and Tim Floyd kept the Vandals chugging along in the ultra-competitive Big Sky. Kermit Davis led Idaho to consecutive NCAA Tournaments in 1989 and 1990 and Larry Eustachy won a regular-season league title in 1993 on the wings of the uber-talented Orlando Lightfoot.
No. 6 national rankings seems like another universe for Vandals’ men’s basketball since the Big Sky Tournament moved to Boise in 2019, let alone tournament runs or Big Sky banners. Idaho finished no higher than eighth in the league between 2019 and 2024, including finishing dead last four times.
So when the opportunity to make an unprecedented run arose, Alex Pribble and this year’s version of Idaho men’s basketball knew they must capitalize. Pribble, Idaho’s smooth, energetic third-year head coach, played on an NCAA Tournament team at Cal in 2006 and was an assistant on Jim Hayford’s staff when Eastern Washington took down Montana in Missoula to book a ticket to the Big Dance in the last Big Sky Tourney played at a hosted site. So he has championship pedigree.
But as the Vandals entered Wednesday night’s championship game against Montana, the 40-year-old was staring history and the weight of decades wandering aimlessly through the mid-major basketball universe in the face. Pribble was 5 years old the last time Idaho made the NCAA Tournament. And the Vandals’ head coach knew his team would have to make history by becoming the first No. 7 seed to win the Big Sky Tournament and the first to win four games in five days to advance to the NCAAs.
“I really love this team and I have felt that way since the start,” Pribble said.
With the weight of Vandal nation weighing down but the support of thousands in attendance lifting Pribble’s team up, Idaho found a way to out-slug the defending champions.
The Vandals went blow for blow with a tough-minded Montana team that had somehow found its identity over the previous week, outlasting the Grizzlies and writing a new chapter in Idaho’s previously dormant storybook. Isaiah Brickner soared to 23 points and 10 rebounds, including an exclamation point put-back dunk that put the partisan crowd into a frenzy. The Vandals never relinquished momentum on the way to a 77-66 win that drifted into the wee hours of Thursday morning by the time Idaho finished cutting down the nets.
“You have a strong foundation, a strong tradition and you have an administration that’s about the right things,” Pribble said. “That has always given me faith that we can have continued success and now I know we can. Our student athletes like attending school in Moscow. They love the student athlete experience. They love that everybody is a Vandal. They love that you walk into stores and everybody knows your name. It’s a special experience and this stamps that.”
Former head coach Don Verlin made Idaho basketball plenty competitive during his tenure between 2008 and 2019. In six seasons in the Western Athletic Conference, the Vandals finished over .500 four times and played in the CIT three times, winning two CIT games in 2009 and another in 2012.
When Idaho re-joined the Big Sky ahead of the 2014 season in all sports except football, the league welcomed them back with open arms. Verlin’s first Big Sky team lost a nail-biter to Eastern Washington in Missoula (Pribble was an assistant on that staff) and won 20 games twice in the next three seasons. Idaho played in the semifinals of the Big Sky Tournament in Reno in 2016 and 2017 before earning the No. 2 seed in 2018 only to lose to Southern Utah.
But the future seemed bright, particularly with the Big Sky Tournament moving to Boise the following season. Boise is home to many Vandals alumni and supporters.
Instead, the Vandals fell off a cliff. None of those faithful have had much to cheer on at Idaho Central Arena the last seven years, unless of course they were also supporters of the Idaho women’s basketball team. But even that came with plenty of heartbreak.
Verlin’s last squad finished 5-27 the first year the neutral site tournament moved to Idaho’s capital city to finish in last place. Verlin was dismissed among a myriad of controversies stemming from self-reported NCAA violations combined with two total conference wins.
After being pinned with the interim tag for an inexplicable amount of time, then being given a full contract, Zac Claus finished dead last three times in four years, finishing 28-88 in four seasons, including 15-61 in the Big Sky and 0-4 in the Big Sky Tournament.
To say that Pribble inherited a rebuild would be a gross understatement. So when he finished ninth in his first season three years ago, the Vandals’ faithful preached patience. When he led Idaho to its first conference tournament win of the Boise era last season, it affirmed progress.
“(Pribble has) had to scrap from the bottom with that program,” DeCuire said. “This is their first winning season since 2018. That’s hard. That’s what makes it special for teams like them and Montana State a couple of years ago to have teams that haven’t had a great year or a big expectation for decades. To get here, tie them up tight and compete and make it happen, I respect them for that. And that’s why they call it ‘March Madness.’”
Still, this year’s Idaho’s team, despite showing flashes during the regular-season, entered the tournament as a long shot at best in a league where many pundits considered five or even six teams to be contenders for the tournament title.
Portland State entered as the No. 1 seed after winning the outright championship. But the Vikings won just twice in their final six Big Sky games, including losing in Missoula to Montana on the final Saturday of the regular season. Plus, PSU had won just one Big Sky Tournament game in the previous four appearances under head coach Jase Coburn.
Montana State entered as the No. 2 seed, an impressive accomplishment for third-year head coach Matt Logie after he lost literally half his roster and only had seven players available to dress and play in his team’s second-round 78-74 loss to Idaho on Sunday. That “upset” cleared the way for the Vandals on their side of the bracket.
Eastern Washington had the most uneven season of anyone in the conference. The Eagles played a brutal non-conference schedule to begin head coach Dan Monson’s second season entering January at 2-13. The son of Don Monson helped right the ship, which has become a trademark over his long career (1997-2026) as a head coach with stops at Gonzaga, Minnesota, Long Beach State and now EWU. The Eagles won 10 out of 13, including 8 in a row to charge up the standings, sweeping the Montana-Montana State road trip in the process to vault up the standings. But an 85-81 home loss to Idaho in the season finale for both teams should’ve been a premonition of things to come.
Idaho had no trouble with EWU in the semifinals, riding the wave of the best pep band in the Big Sky, a growing contingent of ticket-buyers and the wicked play of Kolton Mitchell, a local product from Coeur d’Alene who grew up in a family of Vandals and helped vault Idaho into its first Big Sky Tournament title game since 1993 with 26 points in the semis. Mitchell scored 17 points against Sac State and 11 more in the championship, totaling 58 points, 21 rebounds and 11 assists while sparking UI throughout.
“When that final buzzer sounded, it didn’t even feel real,” Mitchell said while wearing his hat backward and a smile on his face in the post-game press conference. “It still hasn’t really caught up to me right now. I feel like I should be way more hyped but I don’t know what’s going on (laughs).
“I can’t believe what happened. I have such a sense of pride for our team, this program and for the community in Moscow.”
Montana entered the tournament as the No. 4 seed after a mercurial regular season that included a win at UNLV in the non-conference, a loss to NAIA power Montana Tech at home along with five other home losses (most this century), sweeping Portland State and getting swept by Montana State and Eastern Washington. The Griz outlasted PSU in Missoula 74-68 to earn the season sweep only to get blasted 85-57 at Northern Colorado in the regular-season finale.
So when the Griz drew UNC again exactly a week later, many wondered which version of UM would show up. It turns out, the best version showed up, which is so often the case at the conference tournament during Travis DeCuire’s 12 years at the helm leading his alma mater.
Following Northern Colorado’s win over UM to end the regular season, the Bears’ social media account tweeted “No Money in the Bank”, referring to Montana star Money Williams and the fact that UNC plays its home games at Bank of America Arena. That certainly seemed to ignite the talented, enigmatic Griz star southpaw.
Williams rolled up 40 points on Northern Colorado as the Griz rolled to a 95-89 win. The following outing, Williams put 32 points on Portland State and a stellar defensive effort helped the Griz hold on for a 74-71 win to secure a spot in the Big Sky Tournament title game for the seventh time in 11 tournaments under DeCuire.
Because the Griz have made a habit of playing in the post-season — Wednesday marked UM’s 24th Big Sky Tournament title game appearance and the Griz were in the hunt for their 14th NCAA Tournament bid — it seemed almost a foregone conclusion that the Vandals would run out of gas and Montana would advance to the Big Dance for the second year in a row.
Instead, an Idaho roster buoyed by five in-state players and led by Mitchell along with 6-foot-11 Brody Rowbury, a senior from nearby Meridian High, helped Idaho forge an 11-2 run to take a one-point halftime deficit and turn it on its head. Rowbury, who finished with 12 points on 4-of-5 shooting, buried a straight-on 3-pointer, his second of the game, to cap the run, giving UI a 53-43 lead with 8:35 left.
“For me personally, spending the last three years far away from home at Southeastern Louisiana, to come back and do this in my final year….I chose this place for a reason and this is what I came here to do,” Rowbury said. “To get it done is amazing. I look up and I see all my close friends and family in the stands. It’s just an awesome feeling.”
After Rowbury’s spurt, Montana got no closer than seven points as Idaho rode the momentum of the moment all the way into Thursday morning and its first NCAA Tournament berth in 36 years.
“Montana is the perennial powerhouse of this league,” Pribble said. “We knew we could not be the champions until we knocked off the champions and that means beating Montana. We found a way to do it tonight.”
“This is the first time I’ve ever beat Montana,” Mitchell added. “When we knew that was who we were playing in the championship, it put an extra edge on us and it was great to be able to win a championship and have it also be against Montana.”
For the Griz, the ending was bittersweet. On one hand, Montana had overcome inconsistencies spurred on by having two and sometimes three freshmen in its starting lineup. Williams had an unforgettable three postseason games, pouring in a Big Sky Tournament-record 91 points to earn MVP honors. And he battled through illness to score 19 points in the championship game despite the loss.
On the other hand, banners are the name of the game at Montana. And despite losing five seniors off last season’s 25-win team, DeCuire and company came about 10 minutes away from hanging another one.
“The bar is high for Montana and it’s higher than anyone else that competes in this conference because you don’t get to come in 10th place, ninth place and have everyone say it’s ok, pat you on the back and give you three years to get back to the top,” DeCuire said. “We have to do that every year. We have to be in the top four. This is the only program that has that and we’ve done that every year for 12 years.
“It’s not me. It’s the kids. I say that because we have guys who want to win. They come to Montana for all the right reasons. And it makes it a selfless program. That’s what makes our job fun and a lot easier than it is to build a winning culture most places. It was hard this year but it’s going to be hard next year and the year after that. I’m up for the fight and I enjoy the fight.”
For Idaho, the magic is real. No team since Boise State beat Weber State in overtime in the very first Big Sky Tournament in Ogden, Utah, in 1976 has ever won four tournament games in the span of five days.
The Vandals went 9-9 in league but the four victories here this week gave them 21 wins this season, marking the third 20-win season since UI’s last NCAA Tournament bid and its first since 2017-2018.
Idaho will find out its NCAA Tournament fate on Sunday. ESPN’s Joe Lunardi, who is widely considered the guru of bracketology, has the Vandals as a No. 16 seed playing in the First Four. Lunardi’s bracket has Idaho matching up with No. 16 Howard in Dayton, Ohio, on Tuesday, March 17, or Wednesday, March 18. In his projection, a win would send Idaho to Buffalo, New York, for the first round, where they would play No. 1-seed Michigan in the Midwest Region.
In the early hours of Thursday, though, none of that mattered to Pribble, Mitchell and the Vandals.
“I’ve been around and a part of a lot of basketball teams and sometimes, you just have this sense — the internal leadership, the day to day process, the joy the guys play with, the competitiveness – it feels like a championship group,” Pribble said. “I felt that way all year. So during some of the ups and downs, we just had to trust the process and stay with what were are doing. And it clicked for us at the right time.”
