The Vikings, the tournament’s No. 7 seed, tied a school record with 15 3-pointers against the second-seeded Bobcats to claim a 77-65 win at Idaho Central Arena.

Unless an opportunity to play in a postseason tournament comes up in the next week or so, the Bobcats’ season ends here — short of the goal and with a 20-11 overall record.

“It’s heartbreaking knowing we’re finishing off like this because I know we have so much more talent than what we showed out there,” senior guard Darian White said. “We have a lot more to prove, honestly. It sucks because there’s nothing we can do about it now. Our season’s over, but I’m really proud of the season that we had, and I think this year was overall a really great experience, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the girls do next year.”

White scored 14 points to pass into second all-time in career points at MSU with 1,716. She entered the game eight points behind former player and current assistant coach Katie Bussey, who had 1,710 points from 2008-12.

Junior forward Lexi Deden scored 14 points to match White’s output. They were backed up by 12 points from junior guard Leia Beattie and 11 from senior forward Kola Bad Bear.

None of those points, though, could match the hot streak PSU put together. The Vikings, after beating No. 8 seed Idaho State on Saturday in the first round, made 23 shots from the field against the Bobcats, but 15 of those were from deep. It was the third time in school history the Vikings had hit that many 3-pointers.

“We talked about weathering that storm, because they were hot early (Saturday) as well,” Bobcats head coach Tricia Binford said.

“And then they got a little bit cold in some moments. We just didn’t hit some of those shots to kind of counter to get ourselves going.”

Portland State sophomore guard Esmeralda Morales led the offensive charge with six 3-pointers (tying the third-most in a single game in school history) on her way to 28 points. Senior guard Jada Lewis shot 5 of 8 from beyond the arc and finished with 17 points. Sophomore guard Alaya Fitzgerald added a trio of 3s as well and finished with 16 points.

From the beginning, the Vikings seemed to play with the mindset that all the pressure lay with Montana State as the higher seed. That allowed PSU to play more uninhibitedly.

“I think it kind of relaxed me knowing they have most of the pressure on them,” Lewis said. “I think nobody expected us to do what we did, but we have high expectations for ourselves, and that’s exactly what I expected of us. Knowing that everyone was against us in that game, we took that in, and we executed what we needed to do.”

Portland State advanced to the tournament’s semifinals on Tuesday, with Monday being a day off. The Vikings will face the winner of No. 3 seed Sacramento State and No. 6 seed Idaho, which will be played at 2:30 p.m. Monday.

Offense was difficult to come by early on, as the game started with three scoreless minutes both ways. MSU struck first, getting two free throws from Madison Jackson and a 3-pointer from Grace Beasley to build a 5-0 lead. The Vikings answered with a 15-0 run that put them in control for the remainder of the first half.

White scored her team’s other four points in the first quarter, as PSU held a 20-9 advantage through 10 minutes.

Morales was MSU’s biggest source of frustration. She hit four 3-pointers in the second quarter alone. PSU, in fact, only hit five shots from the field in the second. All were 3-pointers — Lewis had the other. The Vikings led 35-26 at halftime.

Their lead grew to 21 points in the third quarter thanks to a 13-1 run to begin the half. Portland State led 57-44 going to the fourth. A layup from Bad Bear and a three-point play from White trimmed the lead to eight points in the fourth quarter, but MSU would get no closer.

Bad Bear said the team was accustomed to having a target on its back as the defending champion all season, but the team’s winning and familial culture alleviated some of the pressure that usually comes with that distinction.

The loss was not for a lack of talent, Bad Bear added, but could be more accurately attributed to “the battle in our head.”

Little things — such as simply catching a pass — didn’t look as smooth for MSU as they normally do, and the team’s defensive rotations and switches were exploited by a Vikings team determined to move the ball.

That resulted most often in deep shots. The Bobcats entered the tournament with the third-fewest made 3-pointers in the league during the regular season (160) while, on the other end of the floor, allowing the most to opponents among Big Sky teams (231). Over the course of the season, that meant the Bobcats were outscored from beyond the arc by 213 points.

More often than not, Montana State found other ways to win, and it wound up with a share of the Big Sky’s regular season championship. But defending the perimeter was a definite pain point, and it resurfaced again at the worst possible time.

“We’ve done a really good job of protecting the paint all year, and the three-ball has been kind of one of those areas,” Binford said. “We just had a lot of errors, (and) that just hasn’t been the standard of consistency that we know we’re capable of.”

Beasley finished with nine points for MSU. Katelynn Limardo had three points, and Jackson finished with two to complete the scoring. Deden led the Bobcats with nine rebounds.

The game potentially closed the book on the careers of seniors White, Bad Bear and Jackson. Nothing is official yet, but it’s at least probable that none of them return for the fifth year of eligibility they’ve been granted because of the COVID-19 pandemic. That trio — along with Kenzie Stumne, who medically retired before this season but has stayed on as a student assistant — make up the winningest class of MSU women’s basketball, according to Binford, with 84 wins over four seasons. The highlight of that stretch was, of course, last year’s NCAA Tournament berth.

{p class=”p1”}Sunday was not as joyous of an ending to the tournament as last year, but it could not erase all of what those players accomplished.

{p class=”p1”}“I hope we showed what a winning culture can look like and what a family truly looks like on and off the court, and I hope they can continue to exemplify that,” Bad Bear said.

{p class=”p1”}Binford has spoken at length in the past about how critical that core has been to continue raising the standard for what MSU women’s basketball is. On Sunday, when faced with the likely end of that era, she said a hug as they came off the floor was not enough time to thank them for what they achieved.

{p class=”p1”}“Endings are hard, but journeys are amazing,” Binford said. “And this journey with this group has been as special as any.”