Portland St. 72, Idaho St. 61

3/11/2008 11:29 PM

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -Deonte Huff scored 20 points to lead Portland State to a 72-61 victory over Idaho State on Tuesday night in the semifinals of the Big Sky Conference tournament.

Jeremiah Dominguez added 16 points for the Vikings (22-9, 15-2 Big Sky), who won their 13th straight Big Sky contest and ninth consecutive home game. Andre Murray scored 11 points for PSU.

Matt Stucki led Idaho State (12-19, 8-9) with 22 points while Lucas Steijn and Amorrow Morgan each added 10 points for the Bengals.

Leading 33-28 at the halftime break, Portland State came out of the locker room and scored the first five points of the second half and led 38-28 when Dominguez fed Huff for a one-handed dunk with 17:32 left to play.

After Kyle Coston hit a 3-pointer and Huff converted another fast break opportunity, the Vikings? advantage ballooned to 43-30 with 16:31 left in the game.

The Bengals did not get closer than nine points the rest of the way as the Vikings secured a spot in Wednesday night's Big Sky tournament championship game against Northern Arizona, their first Big Sky title game appearance.

For the game, Portland State shot 47 percent from the field and attempted 24 3-pointers, connecting on nine from long range. Idaho State shot 45 percent from the game and was even in the rebounding with PSU at 30 boards.

Facing a collapsing zone defense by the Bengals, Portland State wasn't shy about putting up the long-range jumpers. Dominguez hit a 3-pointer to give the Vikings a 7-3 lead with 14:24 left in the first half, and then the Big Sky MVP stole the ensuing inbound pass and connected on another 3-pointer to extend PSU?s advantage to 10-3.

Portland State led 19-10 when Andre Murray got inside and put back his own miss with 9:01 left before halftime. Idaho State stayed close behind 13 first-half points from Stucki and trailed 33-28 at the break.