1945–46 Idaho Vandals men's basketball team


The 1945–46 Idaho Vandals men's basketball team represented the University of Idaho during the 1945–46 NCAA college basketball season. Members of the Pacific Coast Conference, the Vandals were led by fourth-year acting head coach James "Babe" Brown and played their home games on campus at Memorial Gymnasium in Moscow, Idaho.
For the first time in 23 years, the Vandals were Northern Division champions of the PCC, overall in the regular season and in conference play. In the last game of the regular season, the Vandals defeated Palouse neighbor Washington State by two points in Moscow, and Oregon took down runner-up Oregon State by a point in overtime on the road in Corvallis.
In the four-game series with each, the Vandals split with both Oregon and Oregon State, took three from Washington, and swept Washington State.
Idaho met Southern Division champion in the best-of-three championship series in Berkeley, lost game one in a near-riot, won but lost

Postseason results

!colspan=5 style=| Pacific Coast Conference Playoff Series

Fatal accident

Earlier in the season on December 21, player Ronnie White and student manager Walter Thomas were killed in a midday automobile accident in southern Idaho, near Wendell. Also injured were players Warren Shepherd, George Weitz, and Bob Fuller, the latter two hospitalized. The five were traveling in a panel truck driven by Thomas from Rupert to Boise when it collided head-on with a larger truck loaded with concrete pipe on a snow-covered curve; the other driver was
The team's outstanding player award was named for White, who previously played for Lewiston High School and North Idaho Teachers College in Lewiston.

Aftermath

Alumnus Guy Wicks returned to the university after serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II and resumed his duties as head coach in basketball ; Brown was the acting athletic director during the war and also the head football coach in 1945 and 1946.
The next title in basketball for Idaho was 35 years away, in 1981 in the Big Sky Conference.