The College of Idaho’s latest dominating performance came Monday in their first game in Kansas City. The No. 1-ranked Yotes controlled just about every aspect of the contest and rolled to a 98-50 win against LSU Shreveport in the NAIA Tournament’s Round of 16.

“To be able to do that you have to commit to all 40 minutes,” College of Idaho coach Colby Blaine said. “It doesn’t matter what’s going on in the game, if you missed a shot or you made a shot, you have to be able to commit to playing the game the right way for all 40 minutes. You saw that, we played every guy on our roster tonight, and everybody committed to 40 minutes, which got us that victory margin.”

The win was the 33rd in a row for the College of Idaho (33-1) and 14th-straight double-digit victory. The Yotes move to the NAIA quarterfinals for the second season in a row, where they will face Tougaloo (Miss.) at noon MDT on Wednesday. Put up three more performances like they did on Monday, and it’s hard to see any other team taking the red national championship banner with them when they leave Kansas City on Saturday.

“A lot of this feels surreal, just knowing we are in the position that we are,” said Charles Elzie, who had a team-high 25 points for the Yotes. “We feel a lot of great energy behind us. But at the end of the day, we know that only 40 minutes is promised. So that’s the main focus. We emphasize playing one possession at a time.”

It was a dominating game in just about every sense of the word for the Yotes. Offensively, the College of Idaho shot more than 50% from the field, hit 11 3-pointers and scored 50 points in the paint. On 21 of the College of Idaho’s 38 field goals, there was an assist.

Defensively, they forced a season-high 20 turnovers — 13 of which came off of steals — and held the Pilots to 26.7% shooting, including 3 of 19 from 3-point range.

“It comes from our bench, we have one of the deepest benches in the country,” said freshman Samaje Morgan, who had 12 points and five assists. “That helps having fresh legs. Our starters go out there, then our first four off the bench go out and do their thing, too. Everyone knows their role and everyone plays as hard as they can. When that’s going, it’s really easy for things to look like that.”

About the only thing to go right for LSU Shreveport (26-8) was the 8-2 lead the Pilots took two and a half minutes into the game. That did not last long. Over the next 10 minutes, the College of Idaho started rolling. And for a while, it showed no signs of stopping.

Pretty soon, the College of Idaho had taken a huge lead with a 29-3 run.

“If we can get off to a good start, we can control the momentum of the game, we get to dictate how the game is played,” Blaine said. “We always want to get off to a good start, so we can control how the game is going to go.”

A Drew Wyman 3-pointer with 15:30 left in the first half gave the Yotes their first lead at 10-8. LSU Shreveport briefly took the lead back at 11-10 a minute later, but that only lasted 12 seconds before Paul Wilson hit a layup for the College of Idaho, starting a run of 21 straight points. The Yotes held the lead the rest of the game.

Shortly after that, Jalen Brooks, the Pilots’ leading scorer, left the game with his second foul. The floodgates opened from there.

Back-to-back-to-back 3-pointers from Elzie, Johnny Radford and Tyler Robinett made it 27-11 Yotes. An Elzie layup with 7:30 to go in the first half gave the College of Idaho the 20-point lead, 31-11.

There was little hope for LSU Shreveport from there, as the Pilots looked out of sorts after the run, making mistakes which the College of Idaho, in turn, capitalized on. Seven different Yotes had at least one steal in the game, with Elize leading the way with four.

“Everyone on our team plays as hard as they can every single minute they’re on the floor,” Morgan said. “When you know that your team is going to give 100%, you’re going to give 100% as well. Seeing Straton (Rogers) and Charles getting multiple steals, that’s just what we do.”

The College of Idaho led as much as 41-15 in the first half and took a 43-22 lead into the locker room.

There was no letting off the gas pedal in the second half, as the Yotes scored the first eight points, with a Robinett 3-pointer making it 51-22.

“We know there’s a lot of eyes on us, so we don’t want to give any notion other than we’re ready for whoever wants to come play us,” said Elzie, who had 16 of his points in the second half. “We didn’t want to let off the gas because we want to send that message out.”

Even when the two-deep rotation players were pulled with five minutes left, and the College of Idaho holding a comfortable 86-41 lead, the reserves were able to still build the lead. A wide-open 3-pointer by Connor Cooper gave the College of Idaho a 50-point lead, 96-46 with less than two minutes to go.

In the end, it was a 48-point victory, a huge statement for a game this late in the year.

Wyman finished with 11 points for the Yotes, while Robinett scored 10. Caden Handran led the team with nine assists.