krobinett@journalnet.com

Fans chanted his name and teammates jokingly bowed to him as he walked to the sideline during timeouts, but Matt Stucki felt nothing but anguish when he left Holt Arena on Thursday.

Despite a career-high 29 points and an all-around thrilling individual performance from the senior guard, his Idaho State men's basketball team dropped a gut-wrenching overtime game to Weber State 76-67.

Considering that the Bengals led the Wildcats by 13 points with less than 14 minutes to go, that pretty much put a damper on his evening.

"It doesn't matter what you do individually when you lose like that," he said.

Well said.

Had Idaho State been able to hold on against Weber State, it would have moved the Bengals to within one game of the Big Sky conference lead. Now, the Bengals (7-15 overall, 4-4 Big Sky) are three games behind the Wildcats (13-8, 7-1) who are in first place all by themselves with Portland State falling at Montana.

And if that weren't frustrating enough, Idaho State players and coaches have to deal with the fact that they wasted a career effort from one of their best players.

None of them thought they could lose a game in which Stucki made five 3-pointers and seemed to make every shot he looked at during stretches of the second half.

Neither did Weber State guard Kellen McCoy.

"This is a game we probably shouldn't have won," he said. "But we just kept fighting."

It helped that Idaho State lost its composure down the stretch.

Instead of feeding off a lively crowd of 3,231 fans and trying to complement Stucki's career night, the Bengals deferred to him on every possession and seemed dumfounded when they had to do something with the ball.

"Stucki took 13 of our 19 shots in the second half, and that's just too predictable and easy to guard," Idaho State coach Joe O'Brien said. "That balanced scoring I've talked about from the very beginning was not there tonight."

A lot the blame for that fell on the shoulders of normally dependable guards Donnie Carson and Amorrow Morgan.

The junior duo combined for 15 bricks and only six field goals on the night.

But Morgan's struggles didn't stop there. He played by far his worst game of the year and turned the ball over a whopping eight times.

Not that he was alone in the sloppy-play category. As a team the Bengals coughed up the ball 20 times.

O'Brien said that was the story of the game.

"This time of year, you don't win basketball games with 20 turnovers on your own home court," he said. "Even if we would have found a way to win, I'd be in here talking about that number first. I'm very disappointed with that."

Still, Idaho State had all kinds of chances to hold off Weber State.

With 13:42 to play, Stucki drained a 3-pointer to put the Bengals ahead 49-36. It was his 13th point of the young half, and Idaho State was completely in control.

But Weber State is 5-0 in conference road games for a reason. The Wildcats weren't about to give in. Just as it started to look bleak for them, they scored eight straight points to make the score 49-44 with 11:50 remaining.

Idaho State could never pull away again, and Weber State freshmen Kyle Bullinger and Damian Lillard made sure Weber State pulled even.

Bullinger was one of three Wildcats to score 13 points, and Lillard scored most of his 22 points in pivotal situations down the stretch. In the final 10 minutes of regulation and overtime, he made two 3-pointers and scored 14 points.

But Idaho State had a chance to win before the game ever went to overtime. After Morgan missed a free throw with the score tied 63-63 with 14.2 seconds remaining, Stucki snatched an offensive rebound to keep the ball with the Bengals.

The ensuing play went to him, and he put up an open 3-pointer from the top of the key, but it bounced off the rim.

Weber State then took the lead in overtime, and never looked back.

Idaho State had only chance to regain the lead during the extra five minutes. Trailing 68-67 with 1:42 to go, Demetrius Monroe appeared to pull down an offensive rebound and had a chance to score a put-back bucket. But the 6-foot-8 junior forward brought the ball down to his knees before going up with it and embarrassingly allowed the 5-foot-7 McCoy to steal the ball away.

Lillard drained a 3-pointer on the other end and McCoy grabbed another one of his eight rebounds moments later to stop any chance of an Idaho State comeback.

Small guards always seem to give Idaho State problems, but this was the first time one of them hurt it with rebounding.

"He just decided he was gonna go get all the rebounds," Lillard said. "And he did."

If only someone other than Stucki had carried that kind of attitude and effort with them on Idaho State's sideline.

"That kid has got heart, and it carried over to the rest of his team," O'Brien said. "Tonight wasn't about intensity or X's and O's. It was about basketball players making basketball plays. They made more, and just seemed to will themselves to victory."