Presented by WESTERN SIDING.
Tuesday, February 24, 2015.
So you’re New Mexico. And you arrive in Boise yesterday and get settled into your hotel, preparing to meet Boise State, the hottest team in the Mountain West. You’ve lost six games in a row, but you still have talent and a lot of tradition going for you. Then this morning you see the front page of the local newspaper, and there in red it says, “Lowly Lobos In Town Tonight.” Lowly Lobos? They’re still the defending Mountain West champions. Whose idea was it to write that? At some point pride kicks in, and we’ll see how far it carries New Mexico tonight in Taco Bell Arena. Thank you, bulletin board.
So will the Big Bad Wolf wake up tonight? This is the longest losing streak in 44 years for the storied New Mexico basketball program, and the Lobos’ star guard and leader Hugh Greenwood has called out his teammates for their work ethic. “Guys got to get in the gym and start making shots and put in the extra work,” Greenwood said in the Albuquerque Journal. “You’ve got to be willing to put in the extra time and guys need to go and do that on their own time. We can’t just rely on the couple hours the coaches have with us. We have to make sure that we go and do our own thing.” New Mexico is in real danger of facing a play-in game at the Mountain West Tournament. The Lobos are 14-13 overall and 6-9 in league play.
Unfortunately, injured Boise State star Anthony Drmic won’t get to enjoy one last head-to-head matchup with Greenwood, his rival and old buddy from Australia. There’s still some Aussie intrigue tonight, though. As a fellow senior, the Broncos’ Igor Hadziomerovic does get a sayonara versus Greenwood. Hadziomerovic did the little things in the first game between these two teams, pulling down four rebounds and dishing out five assists in Boise State’s landmark 69-59 win at The Pit last month. The Broncos’ other Australian, Nick Duncan, was solid with eight points and seven boards. Greenwood had an off-night, going 3-for-14 from the field and scoring just six points. He has been a thorn in Boise State’s side over the years, though, playing in all nine games against the Broncos and averaging more than 10 points and six rebounds.
This kind of Boise State season wouldn’t seem right if James Webb III didn’t win at least one Mountain West Player of the Week award. Webb has it now, honored by the conference yesterday for leading the Broncos to their first-ever road win over UNLV and their 32-point home shellacking of Nevada. The sophomore forward recorded his sixth double-double of the year at the Thomas & Mack Center last Wednesday with 12 points and 11 rebounds. Webb scored nine points in the decisive second half, including a go-ahead dunk with 3½ minutes left. Against the Wolf Pack he contributed 17 of his game-high 22 points in the first half and went 4-for-4 from beyond the arc.
I've been saving this since January 31. That day, at the bottom of the TV listings, there was "Pepperdine at Saint Mary's (taped)" and "San Francisco at San Diego (taped)." It wasn't the first time I'd seen the word "taped" this season, and it hasn’t been the last. Hooray for the West Coast Conference. The air times on ROOT Sports that night were 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. Mountain, respectively, while the actual tipoff times were 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. local time. How about it, Mountain West? If a 9 p.m. telecast is on anything but ESPN or ESPN2, who cares? The audiences are so minuscule on the other networks, why not just play the games when fans can attend, and show them later on the secondary networks for families, recruits and out-of-town alums?
Boise State received one more point in the Coaches Poll for a grand total of two this week following its rout of Nevada. The Broncos are still voteless in the AP Poll. San Diego State reappeared in both rankings this week—No. 24 in AP and No. 22 on the Coaches’ list. The big news surrounding the Aztecs was the return of Dwayne Polee in last Saturday’s victory at San Jose State. Polee, who had been out since collapsing due to a heart condition during a game against UC Riverside on December 22, had three points, one steal and one turnover in 13 minutes. By the way, Colorado State also garnered two points in the Coaches Poll this week.
Don Verlin’s tirade against his own assistant last Thursday at Northern Arizona has drawn the Idaho coach a reprimand from the university and a $5,000 fine, with the money going to a charity of his choice. Verlin has also apologized for the incident that saw him lose his cool, shouting at assistant coach Chris Helbling before grabbing his binder and play cards, throwing them to the floor, and sending Helbling off the court with a shove. Verlin didn’t include Helbling in his apology, but Helbling has also been reprimanded by the U of I.
There’s been a lot of post-NFL Combine talk of Boise State’s Jay Ajayi being a possible fit in Dallas. And Rick Gosselin of the Dallas Morning News finds that ironic, pointing out that TCU, Baylor and even North Texas looked at Ajayi in high school, and none of them deemed him worthy of a scholarship. “Being from Texas, you want to stay in state so your parents and family can watch you every weekend,” Ajayi told Gosselin of his recruitment. “So that was a little disappointing. But I’m not disappointed with the outcome of my decision to attend Boise State. We were able to accomplish a lot at Boise State, and I’m here today because of that decision.” The Cowboys are in a little bit of limbo right now as they wait to see if free agent DeMarco Murray is going to re-sign. Seems like the wild card in Dallas now might be Adrian Peterson.
ESPN has designated the date for the Boise State-Washington game. It’ll be Friday, September 4, leading into Labor Day weekend. That means the countdown is at 192 days. It’ll be the toughest ticket at Albertsons Stadium since the 2009 Oregon game. It seems like a made-for-TV movie, coming as it does just 21 months after Chris Petersen left the Broncos for the Huskies. But it was preordained as the back end of the home-and-home series that started with Boise State’s 38-6 loss at UW in 2013.
The Idaho Steelheads are hopeful that starting goalie Olivier Roy will be able to return in time for their next homestand a week from tomorrow night. Roy, who was leading the ECHL with 22 victories at the time he was hurt, has been out with a lower body injury the entire month of February. Jack Campbell has settled in nicely in Roy’s absence. The former first-round NHL draft pick has gone 4-1 since joining the Steelheads, including the 34-save shutout at Stockton last Friday. Steelies backup Henri Kiviaho is still with the Texas Stars on an AHL call-up.
This Day In Sports…brought to you by the ASHLEY INN OF CASCADE…your adventure starts at our front door!
February 24, 2001: Two weeks after suspending operations, the Continental Basketball Association declares bankruptcy in the middle of its 55th season. The CBA had struggled after being purchased and later placed in a blind trust by former NBA star Isiah Thomas. The decision terminated the Idaho Stampede, whose original ownership had been trying for a month to step in and somehow save the franchise. But the financial stakes were way too high. When play was halted February 8, the Stampede had the CBA’s best record at 17-7 and featured former Boise State star Roberto Bergersen. The CBA re-formed the following season, though the Stamps sat out until 2002-03.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment Sunday nights at 10:30PM on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra and anchors five sports segments each weekday on 93.1 The Ticket. He also served as color commentator on KTVB’s telecasts of Boise State football for 14 seasons.)
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