No easy road for ISU men

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krobinett@journalnet.com

POCATELLO - Idaho State finally released its men's basketball schedule Wednesday afternoon, and it looks like Joe O'Brien spent close to every hour he could this summer trying to make it as glamorous as possible.

For the second straight year, the Bengals coach has constructed a fearsome set of games that are filled with big names and long road trips. But unlike last season, they aren't all guarantee games.

Idaho State will open at Iowa on Nov. 9, then travel to BYU, Long Beach State, UCLA, Utah, Washington and play in a two-game tournament at Oregon State before the conference season begins.

In between all that carnage will be only four home games, which O'Brien isn't particularly pleased about. But two of them - against Washington State and Boise State - will be quite appealing. And at least this time around, a lot of the big boys on the schedule are promising to come to Pocatello in the future.

Much like the two-for-one deal that Idaho State struck with Washington State, both of Utah's major schools agreed to play a game next year in Holt Arena in exchange for Idaho State making two trips to the Beehive State. Add in a pure home-and-home agreement with Long Beach State, and the much talked about possibility of making Boise State a yearly in-season home-and-home opponent, and the Bengals are looking at one righteous home schedule for the 2008-09 season.

Boise State, Idaho, Long Beach State, Utah, BYU and a lower-division team would make up the nonconference home games as of now.

''The thing we want to do is build in some teams that have name recognition for our fans in our community,'' O'Brien said. ''I think this does that. It gives us some nice home games and a 14-game home schedule down the line. That's where you want to be.''

But before the Bengals can savor those games in the mini dome, they have to survive this year's daunting nonconference schedule.

Iowa will be out to win for its new coach Todd Lickliter. BYU made the NCAA tournament last season. UCLA and Washington State will be top 10 preseason teams, and Oregon State and Washington are hardly pushovers.

''The challenge now is to compete with a schedule like this in front of us,'' O'Brien said. ''Last year we did a good job of that except for a few times. We need to do that again, and maybe win some of these games.''

Win or lose, the Bengals will get some regional exposure when the nonconference ends. Idaho State is scheduled to play three games on Altitude TV this year. Each of the Bengals' home tilts with Portland State, Northern Arizona and Montana will be televised.

That type of air time will be good for Idaho State, especially with Montana coming to town for senior day. But there is a downside.

Each of those games will be moved to Sunday afternoons to accommodate Altitude. With the Washington State game also falling on a Sunday, that's four high-profile Sunday home games. No one knows how that will affect attendance in a town like Pocatello.

''Making a schedule is hard work, and this one isn't perfect,'' O'Brien said. ''We don't want to play on Sundays. It's a difficult scenario to draw crowds. But we've never done it so we'll try it out and hope it works well.''

Key Games

Nov. 9 at Iowa

Nov. 14 at BYU

Dec. 5 Boise State

Dec. 15 at UCLA

Dec. 23 Washington State

Dec. 27 at Utah

Jan. 31 at Weber State

Feb. 2 Weber State

Feb. 24 Montana

Mar. 1 at Northern Arizona

By Kellis Robinett

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