An early look at Idaho State men's basketball

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IDAHO STATE BASKETBALL NOTES

—  Bill Evans estimates Idaho State will play man-to-man defense as much as 20 percent of the time. “We’re trying to extend and be more aggressive and try to get some easy baskets out of our defense,” Evans said. “I don’t know, we’ll see how good we are at it.”

—  Evans intends to redshirt true freshmen Novak Topalovic and Spencer Nicolds and sophomore Justin Smith, who played in 26 games as a freshman and averaged 1.8 points and 1.2 rebounds in nearly nine minutes a game.

—  There was some thought outside the ISU basketball program that the Bengals would start either freshman Geno Luzcando or Ian Fox at point guard to replace the graduated Tomas Sanchez.

But Evans wants to start Ben Wilson for a couple reasons. First, Wilson should provide a spark at the top of ISU’s matchup zone. Second, the young point guards are still developing. Regardless, Wilson will play major minutes for the Bengals whether he’s starting or not.

“It’s obviously a very big learning experience for me this first couple games,” Wilson said. “But I’m confident in what I can do and I’m confident I can help the team at that position.”