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Weber State guard Trevor Hennig (6) shoots a 3-pointer against Idaho State's Dylan Darling on Saturday, Feb. 8, 2025, at the Dee Events Center in Ogden.

Robert Casey, WSU Athletics

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Weber State guard Blaise Threatt (0) scores against Idaho State's Evan Otten (30) and Jake O'Neil (8) on Saturday, Feb. 8, 2025, at the Dee Events Center in Ogden.

Robert Casey, WSU Athletics

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Weber State's Vasilije Vucinic, bottom left, fights for the basketball against Idaho State on Saturday, Feb. 8, 2025, at the Dee Events Center in Ogden.

Robert Casey, WSU Athletics

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Weber State's Declan Cutler (15) looks to shoot against Idaho State's Connor Hollenbeck on Saturday, Feb. 8, 2025, at the Dee Events Center in Ogden.

Robert Casey, WSU Athletics

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Weber State center Alex Tew (20) drives against Idaho State's Jackson Greene on Saturday, Feb. 8, 2025, at the Dee Events Center in Ogden.

Robert Casey, WSU Athletics

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Weber State guard Blaise Threatt (0) rises for a layup against Idaho State on Saturday, Feb. 8, 2025, at the Dee Events Center in Ogden.

Robert Casey, WSU Athletics

❮ ❯

OGDEN — Weber State men’s basketball had five seniors entering this season and, through 24 games, three of them led the Wildcats with double-digit scoring averages.

Now only one of those three scorers is left.

Senior wing Dyson Koehler is out for the season with a broken bone in his right wrist, which he suffered late in Monday’s win over Northern Arizona. With the departure of Miguel Tomley to a serious medical condition two weeks ago, the Wildcats lost 229 games worth of experience between the two players.

Weber State was left Saturday to take it on the chin and try to move forward again. The visiting Idaho State Bengals — having lost to WSU earlier this season in a game Koehler scored 21 points on six 3-pointers — didn’t much care to feel sorry for the Wildcats.

Third-year sophomore guard Dylan Darling netted a career-high 30 points to lead Idaho State, offsetting a career-high 21 points from WSU true freshman Trevor Hennig, and the Bengals scratched out a 72-67 victory at the Dee Events Center.

It’s Idaho State’s third straight win in Ogden and fourth in the last five Purple Palace meetings.

The increasingly youthful Wildcats made enough plays to win but also a few costly mistakes to torpedo their chances, dashing any thoughts that success might stick after Monday’s thrilling win. In the end, Idaho State was simply just better when it mattered.

Weber State (9-16) falls to 3-8 in Big Sky play, is 1-8 against Division I opponents at home this season, and failed at a chance to win consecutive games against DI opponents — something this team has done just once, more than two months ago on consecutive days in Arizona over Bowling Green and Pepperdine.

After long sessions of film and data analysis, the Wildcats entered Monday against NAU with new offensive focuses to run in transition and cut, cut, cut. That plan, which led to 35 points in the first 12 minutes against NAU, took a hit with Koehler’s injury — largely because to run, you have to rebound.

WSU soon found that they didn’t have enough physicality to combat the country’s sixth-best offensive rebounding team.

“It’s really hard just because you know what they’re going to do and you’ve got to try and stop it,” Hennig said. “But they’re a good team, credit to them, they played hard. Dylan Darling, really good player. But at the end of the day, it’s up to us.”

After some early back and forth, Darling and company used a 13-5 run to build a 27-16 lead with 8:38 left in the first half, which would prove to be the largest margin of the night.

A Hennig 3-pointer cut it to four before Darling concluded his 16-point first half with a stepback jumper, giving Idaho State (11-11, 6-5) a 37-31 halftime lead.

Darling nabbed a crucial steal and three-point play early in the second half to put ISU up seven. WSU whittled it down to one on a Hennig transition drive with 13:29 left.

It looked like the Bengals might pull away for good when one of Idaho State’s 13 offensive rebounds led to a high-arcing 3 from Connor Hollenbeck, and a WSU turnover soon helped Jake O’Neil to a transition dunk.

But Weber State answered with a 12-4 run when Blaise Threatt swished a 3-pointer following an Alex Tew offensive rebound, and Viljami Vartiainen probed the paint and converted a three-point play with a short jumper and foul. That put WSU ahead 55-53 with 9:34 left, its first lead since 6-5.

The lead changed hands three times until ISU got it back for good when big man Blake Daberkow put back his own miss. Darling soon put a stunning spin move on freshman Saadiq Moore and ISU led 62-57 with 5 minutes left.

Hennig, who shot 4 of 4 from distance, made two 3-pointers in the next minute. The second made it 64-63 with 3:40 left. Threatt forced a held-ball turnover on ISU’s next possession, but he and Hennig both missed shots that would’ve put Weber back in the lead.

After Darling missed the front-end of a bonus free-throw trip, Hennig drove to the rack for his final basket to make it 68-67 with 12.2 seconds left. Darling went back to the line with 7.1 ticks left, made both takes and, up three, Idaho State intentionally fouled twice to keep WSU from attempting a 3-pointer.

Nemanja Sarenac missed a front-end free throw with 5.3 seconds left, sealing the result.

WSU senior Threatt totaled 20 points, five rebounds and five assists, bringing him 35 points away from 2,000 in his college career. But there’s some concern about an ankle injury he suffered with 3:54 left in Saturday’s game. He limped off the court into the media timeout and played through it for the rest of the contest, then limped into the tunnel after the game concluded and was not able to make media interviews while he received treatment.

“It’s no shock that we’ve gone through a lot of adversity,” Hennig said. “We lost tonight but there were some good things we did out there. Let’s focus on that, let’s get better, and at the end of the day … it matters what happens in March.”

Moore, Tew and a foul-plagued Vartiainen each added six points for WSU. Hennig’s six rebounds led the team. Weber shot 27 of 51 (52.9%) overall and 7 of 12 (58.3%) from the 3-point line but just 6 of 11 (54.5%) at the charity stripe.

True freshman Declan Cutler got his second straight start at center for the Wildcats; he totaled four points, three rebounds and was a team-high plus-four in the plus-minus ledger. Tew, the senior, had six points and a plus-one margin but committed five turnovers in 22 minutes.

ISU got 14 points and seven rebounds from O’Neil, and 10 points and seven boards from Hollenbeck. ISU managed just 5 of 22 from distance but were 15 of 18 at the foul line and won the offensive glass 13-4, leading to an 11-3 advantage in second-chance points. ISU also won the turnover battle 15-9, leading to a 13-7 advantage in points off turnovers.

With unprecedented levels of losing at home and senior leaders continuing to drop out of action, it seems unclear where the next wins might come. The Wildcats now take a road trip for games against Montana State and Montana and know they’ve got no choice but to figure out how to win or face a dreadful win-loss record.

As it stands now, WSU’s 3-8 league start is among the four worst in at least the last 37 seasons, making company with a 3-7 start in the 2004-05 season and an 0-6 start in 2005-06. The 2005-06 team finished 4-10 in league play, resulting in the firing of Joe Cravens. That 37-year stretch goes back to the 1987-88 season, a 3-7 start that resulted in a 6-10 finish and the firing of Larry Farmer.

“The word going forward is opportunity. It’s an opportunity to be fearless and competitive,” Duft said. “Life’s coming at us hard right now and it’s just what it is. We have to be resilient and grow … I told them we won’t go anywhere by feeling sorry for ourselves. …

“An opportunity has presented itself. … It could go down as a really tough year in Weber State history, or, we could make it a great story. We’ve got those two choices and we’ve got to do everything we can to make it a great story.”

MORE QUOTABLES

Below are more quotes from head coach Eric Duft following Saturday’s loss.

“Credit goes to the players tonight and how hard they played, how competitive they were. We saw some guys really grow up and continue to get better, and it’s good to see. Now we’ve just got to find a way to win.”

“Winning at this level … it’s down to a couple possessions each half. If you can change the outcome of those two possessions, you can win the game. It’s not like we have to fix 15 possessions. You just have to stay committed to each day, being as good as you can. It’s not cliche, it’s the only way to do it in this profession — whether you’re the Eagles and the Chiefs going in the Super Bowl or you’re Weber State and you’re struggling through some injuries and adversity. It’s just day to day. You have to wake up and do the best you can each day. What makes me feel good is when I step in front of the team and I address them, I’ve got everybody’s attention, they’re looking me in the eye. They’re all committed and, as long as we have that, we’ll keep growing and developing. We have a high-character group, they’re great to coach. As long as they’re engaged, we’ll get better and we’ll find some ways.”

“We just have to focus on what we can control. It’s hard, it’s not been a lot of fun, but that’s what’s presented itself and that’s what we’ve got to attack.”

“The thing that concerns you the most is when you put some youth on the floor, you’re relying on young players who haven’t been through it before. … So when those plays need to be made, we’re just making a few too many mistakes. It not those guys’ fault. We’re watching film with them every day, they’re trying their best to make those plays, they’re just a little inexperienced. We had a couple careless turnovers tonight from our young guys — and some of our old guys, too … there’s a couple defensive things late … those are just things we’ll learn from, we’ll grow, and next time we’ll be better. Saadiq, Trevor and Declan, there’s things coming at them in crucial parts of the game, they’re better at them now than they were three or four weeks ago. We’re running plays for Trevor at the end of the game, and we couldn’t have done that a month ago.”