And though the Wildcats mounted a comeback and erased what was a 20-point deficit at Idaho, they didn’t have enough to sustain it.

When Koby McEwen missed the first of two free throws with 10.4 seconds left, that was WSU’s final chance in a series of pushes and Idaho claimed an 83-79 victory, handing Weber State its third consecutive loss.

“We had too big a hole. We missed a bunch of layups in the first half, shots just wouldn’t fall down and I thought it affected our defense,” WSU head coach Randy Rahe said. “It’s hard to come back from 20 on the road. We tried our butts off in the second half and got it right there, but it’s always hard to expend that much energy and then finish it off. We didn’t finish it off.”

It’s the third result for Idaho in its new ICCU Arena where the otherwise lowly Vandals (6-18, 3-11 Big Sky) have stunned (or nearly so) conference leaders. The Vandals took Long Beach State to overtime to start the season (Long Beach now leads the Big West) and raced by South Dakota State 98-84 (South Dakota State is 22-4 and leads the Summit League at 13-0).

Now, Weber State (18-8, 11-4) is not a conference leader, sitting in third place after Montana State turned away both Portland State and Northern Arizona in one-possession games at home this week to win 11 straight, leading the Big Sky at 20-5 overall and 12-2 in league play.

Weber State didn’t score for eight possessions to start Saturday’s contest and Idaho went up 12-0. The Wildcats hit a mark of 6-of-26 shooting before Yusef Salih hit a 3 to put the Vandals up 37-17 with 1:30 left in the first half.

Using a 1-3-1 trap, WSU caused two live-ball turnovers, one leading to a McEwen three-point play and another to a JJ Overton dunk to end the half.

That pressure continued the run in the second half. WSU racked up stops with turnovers and missed Idaho 3s to extend the rally to 26-5. The Wildcats started the half 7 of 10 from the field, outscored the Vandals 19-5 in the first 6:20 and took a 43-42 lead.

That would prove to be WSU’s only lead of the game. Idaho finally responded with consecutive 3-pointers from Mikey Dixon, the scoring threat who couldn’t be stopped Saturday. That sparked a 12-3 Idaho run that had the Vandals hold a lead of 5-8 points most of the way from there.

In what was mostly a run of traded trips to the free-throw line down the stretch, Seikou Sisoho Jawara hit a 3-pointer with 1:20 left to make it 78-76 and, when Dixon followed by missing the front-end of a bonus free-throw trip, it looked like Weber State might pull off an improbable win.

But Overton was then called for an offensive foul during a McEwen drive, whistled for a moving screen when he inadvertently ran into an Idaho player trying to cut to the paint. He suffered knee-to-knee contact and had to be helped off the floor with 1:02 left. His status is not known.

That was Weber State’s only turnover of the second half. The Wildcats committed five for the game while forcing 18 out of the Vandals.

Still, a 1-3-1 trap resulted in a loose ball and tie-up under Idaho’s basket and the possession arrow gave the ball back to Weber State. A sequence of drive actions from McEwen and Sisoho Jawara set up Dillon Jones for an open 3 in the corner and the lead, but it bounced off with 25 seconds left. WSU shot 4 of 19 from deep.

McEwen led Weber State with 22 points and three steals. Jones totaled 17 points, 10 rebounds and three steals. Overton scored 17 before his exit, and Dontay Bassett added 13 points.

WSU shot an uncharacteristic 17 of 25 from the foul line, those eight misses hampering its ability to stretch the comeback to the final whistle.

Dixon finished with 31 points, 10 rebounds and four assists for Idaho. Anderson added a career-high 26 points and six assists. The two combined to shoot 20 of 27 from the field and 6 of 10 from the 3-point line (all other Vandals were 11 of 26 and 2 of 10).

One WSU reinforcement who might have helped slow the two smaller, quick guards — sophomore guard KJ Cunningham — watched the final stretch on his phone at the Dee Events Center between ball-handling and spot-shooting work. He didn’t make this week’s road trip due to an ankle injury.

Weber State returns home to host Sacramento State (Thursday, Feb. 17) and Northern Colorado (Saturday, Feb. 19).