BOZEMAN, Mont. — Across two hours Thursday night, enough happened to Idaho State to write a short book. The Bengals went down by 15, engineered a run to take a four-point lead, then watched three starters foul out in a span of 29 seconds. ISU has found ways to win without its best players, but on this occasion, the team couldn’t survive those losses.

Here are five thoughts from the game.

1. Idaho State is really depleted at the forward spot

It’s become obvious in spots throughout the season, but ISU has a problem with post defense. For one, the team’s only true big is Ellie Smith, who stands 6-foot-2. Idaho State fills out the rest of its lineups with small-ball forwards, players like Callie Bourne and Estefi Ors and Tomekia Whitman. They’re tough and physical, but the real issue is that they’re all 5-foot-10, leaving them vulnerable to true post players in the Big Sky, like Montana State’s Kola Bad Bear and Katelynn Limardo, Sacramento State’s Isnelle Natabou, Weber State’s Emma Torbert and others.

At this point, it’s no secret. Opponents know Idaho State doesn’t have the personnel to match up with bigger, physical posts, so they feed those players inside. The Bengals have sometimes found ways to get stops — sometimes with a good contest, other times by poking the ball away — but more often, opponents back the Bengals down and score with a flip shot or bank shot.

So without many options at that position, Idaho State has turned to double teams, sending another defender when opponents catch it around the basket. That’s usually enough to discourage a layup, but it frees up shooters around the perimeter. On Thursday, Montana State sprayed home 10 triples. Several of those came when the Bobcats identified a double team, kicked it back out and knocked down the open 3-pointer.

For ISU, there aren’t many concrete ways to remedy this problem. After the game, head coach Seton Sobolewski said he thought about subbing in a player who could match up physically with Montana State — 6-foot-3 freshman Kayla Salmons has played sparingly this season, for example — but he can’t expect someone with so little experience to be in-sync on offense as well. The Bengals might need to just keep doubling and rotate out to shooters. Maybe that will force misses.

2. The fouling issues

This goes hand-in-hand with Idaho State’s post defense problem. When the Bengals can’t match opponents in size underneath, at times, they’ll foul them. That isn’t the worst thing — free throw shooting comes and goes — but on Thursday, it burned ISU in a bad way.

In a stretch of 29 seconds in the fourth quarter Thursday night, three Idaho State players fouled out: Ellie Smith, Montana Oltrogge and Callie Bourne. None seem like awful calls. Smith might have gotten all ball on a rebound attempt, but with four fouls in crunch time, it’s probably smarter to concede a defensive board. Oltrogge hit Montana State guard Darian White on a drive to the basket. Then, Bourne is whistled for a foul trying to corral a rebound off her missed layup.

Check out the fouls below.

These three fouls in particular don’t spotlight Idaho State’s post defense problem — more than that, they highlight an over-aggression problem — but it’s real.

Check out the numbers: For the season, opponents have totaled 402 free throw attempts to Idaho State’s 239. Big Sky opponents have registered 278 free throws to the Bengals’ 160. Part of that is situational — ISU has gotten hot from deep this season, so it hasn’t needed to take it inside — but part of it has to do with the Bengals’ lack of post personnel. At a certain point, they run out of options underneath.

3. What’s going on with ISU’s interior finishing?

Idaho State’s loss to Montana State turned into a microscope on a niche problem the Bengals have faced this season: Finishing around the rim.

Against the Bobcats, the Bengals made just 8 of 18 layups. That’s 10 misses in the paint. Not all were easy, but most were makeable. Here are three of the misses.

Part of this goes back to Idaho State’s size, or lack thereof. When the Bengals can’t see over defenders, or have long enough arms to find angles to the rim, those misses surface. Other misses, though, are weird. Whitman’s missed freebie above. Guard Dora Goles had one last week. Make those and ISU is likely looking at a different outcome against Montana State.

4. Tomekia Whitman’s consistent play

After the game, when I asked Sobolewski about Tomekia Whitman’s outing, he smiled. Whitman had posted 15 points and 10 rebounds (four offensive). Sobolewski said this:

“You could ask me that question 101 different ways, and the answer is always the same, because that’s just Tomekia. She’s a tough competitor who can rebound and defend, and her offense has gotten so much better. I’m glad she’s on our team.”

Sobolewski is running out of ways to describe Whitman’s game because, among other reasons, she’s become so consistent. She’s scored in double figures in six of her last seven games (the one exception was a nine-point outing). She’s grabbing 6.9 rebounds per game, tops on the team. She averages 2.8 steals a game, best in the conference. She’s also shooting a reliable 39% from distance, which helped ISU stay in Thursday’s game, when she hit two of six from beyond the arc.

On a team stacked with experience, Whitman is becoming one of the best players. She can do most everything on the court. Her only limitation might be her height, standing 5-foot-10, but that hasn’t stopped her from pulling down rebounds and finishing inside, which she’s turned into a real strength.

5. The sky isn’t falling for Idaho State, but the team does need to respond

All things considered, Idaho State is in an OK place: 13-8 overall, 9-3 in the Big Sky, landing the team in third in the conference standings.

The Bengals trail leaders Southern Utah and Montana State, who are tied for the conference’s top spot with 8-2 records. ISU has wins over both those teams, an 80-60 win over Southern Utah and a 67-57 triumph over Montana State, both in January.

The Bengals do face some issues, though, like the ones we’ve already gone over: Post defense, fouling, interior finishing. Some are harder to solve, like the personnel issues, but some figure to have fixes, like the missed layups that have surfaced every now and then.

But for Idaho State, this season has always been about repeating as conference tournament champions. The Bengals return basically the same team that captured the crown last year, advancing to the NCAA Tournament, so they expect to do so this year too. If they’re healthy in March, and find answers to some of the issues we’ve discussed, they’ll take their chances.