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Friday, February 28, 2014.
Boise State has two sour tastes it would dearly like to erase tomorrow night at Wyoming. One is a couple days old, the 76-56 rout it suffered at the hands of Fresno State. The other has been lingering for six weeks, the 52-50 loss to the Cowboys in Taco Bell Arena. That’s the game that saw the Broncos leading 46-37 with less than nine minutes left in the game, only to make just one basket the rest of the night. Their shooting struggles were similar to those in the blowout at the Save Mart Center—Boise State hit just 32 percent from the field and 17 percent from beyond the arc against the Pokes.
Dueling injuries could cancel each other out for Boise State and Wyoming tomorrow night. If Anthony Drmic is unable to play, that is. It was the Cowboys’ Larry Nance Jr. who hit the winning bucket against the Broncos last month. He leads the Pokes in points, rebounds, blocks and steals, but he was lost to a torn ACL in a win over Fresno State a week and a half ago. That’s a gigantic loss for Wyoming, which has dropped games since Nance’s injury to a pair of struggling teams, Colorado State and Air Force. Drmic went out with an apparent ankle sprain midway through the second half Wednesday night at Fresno State. The Australian junior was having an off-night anyway, but he had been on a hot streak. Still waiting to see if Drmic will play.
There’s a reason I saved this observation after the Boise State loss at UNLV four weeks ago that saw an 11-point lead dissipate in the final minutes. A Scott Slant reader wrote at the time, “Saturday night hurt. I thought Derrick Marks looked exhausted at the end, which may help explain those two missed free throws and that little jumper in the lane. Maybe they were all tired. They sure weren't getting the rebounds and loose balls late as they were throughout most of the game.” May have been a factor. That brings up stamina as it pertains to tomorrow night’s game. Laramie infamously sits at 7,200 feet, and there are reminders everywhere. And Marks did not make the trip to Wyoming last season due to a one-game suspension. Mikey Thompson wasn’t there, either—for the same reason.
The Idaho Stampede’s single-affiliation NBA agreement with Portland is going to last only two seasons. The Blazers are ending their deal with the Stampede, one that has resulted in only three players being assigned to Idaho—and one, CJ McCullum, for just two games this season. The Stamps used to get a lot more players from Portland before the agreement, and for longer stretches. Example: former Nevada star Luke Babbitt. You’d guess that this would end the tenure of Stampede coach Mike Peck, who is employed by the Blazers. Stampede managing investor Bill Ilett told the Statesman he’ll seek another NBA team to partner with. It is duly noted that the Utah Jazz don’t have a single-affiliation deal. The Stamps host the Santa Cruz Warriors in CenturyLink Arena tonight and tomorrow night.
Bryan Harsin’s first spring football itinerary as Boise State coach is official now. The Broncos begin drills a week from Monday and will go for two weeks before spring break and two weeks after, culminating with the Blue & Orange Game Saturday, April 12. Boise State’s official release is pumping up the offensive angle of Harsin’s arrival. “Boise State finished no lower than 12th in scoring offense during his time as offensive coordinator, and no lower than 18th in total offense.” You know where the expectations are in Bronco Nation.
Chris Petersen has more or less confirmed that the energy was gone last fall during his final season at Boise State. In an interview with Greg Bishop of SI.com in his University of Washington office, Petersen said, “This was the first time that I did feel like—I'm trying to think what the correct words are, but—there wasn't maybe quite as much excitement. I'd been (at Boise State) a long time. It was maybe the first time that it was not as much, I don't want to say the word drudgery, but certain things I wasn't excited about, that just come with any job. So that, coupled with when this opportunity came, it was like, maybe this is the time.”
Petersen acknowledges that while UW is good for him, Bryan Harsin is good for the Broncos. “Looking back on it, it was totally the right time. I think it was the right time for Boise. They need a new burst of energy. And this has been a good thing for me. The challenge to get everybody going, it's so different. At Boise, we had the process. Here, we don't have the process set up yet. That's what's kind of exciting about it.” Honestly, as weird as things were 12 weeks ago, it all makes sense.
I don’t know if current Idaho Steelhead Jeremy Yablonski and former Steelhead Adam Huxley have ever met, but they could exchange pleasantries on the ice tonight and tomorrow night in Las Vegas. Yablonski, activated after a nearly three-month stay on injured reserve by the Steelheads at the end of last week, is a renowned fighter who played in Russia’s KHL the past two seasons (when he wasn’t suspended). Huxley, who once racked up 210 penalty minutes in a season with the Steelies, is now a Las Vegas Wrangler. He amassed 231 PIMs for the club last season. In a 6-5 loss to Bakersfield Tuesday night, Huxley had 11 minutes in penalties, including a fighting major. He was fined and suspended for four games in January by the ECHL for an illegal check to the head. Could be a chippy weekend.
If Troy Merritt could string four of these days together, it would be huge for him. The former Boise State star, looking for his first prize money in a PGA Tour event this season, shot a two-under 68 yesterday in the first round of the Honda Classic in Palm Beach Gardens, FL. Merritt’s four-birdie, two-bogey day on the PGA National course leaves him five strokes behind first-round leader Rory McIlroy.
On the campus cruise, the top-seeded College of Idaho men’s basketball team, ranked third in NAIA Division II, hosts a Cascade Conference tournament semifinal game tonight against seventh-seeded Oregon Tech. The Coyotes, now 26-5, have won 13 games in a row. At Taco Bell Arena, the Boise State women host Wyoming tomorrow hoping to turn the tables on the Cowgirls, who beat them 55-48 in Laramie in January. The Broncos have lost two of their last three.
The Boise State men’s tennis team, with its new No. 15 ranking in tow, faces Washington and Oregon on the road this weekend. The Bronco track and field team is at the Air Force Academy for the Mountain West Indoor Track and Field Championships, beginning in earnest today. The BSU women’s gymnastics team hosts one of its marquee home meets of the season tonight as Iowa visits Taco Bell Arena. And the Boise State wrestling team goes to Stanford’s Maples Pavilion Sunday for the Pac-12 Championships. The Broncos hope to reverse course on what has been a disappointing season.
This Day In Sports…brought to you by ZAMZOW’S…nobody knows like Zamzow’s!
February 28, 2010: The Winter Olympics in Vancouver are capped by the biggest moment in Canadian sports history, as Canada beats the U.S. for the men’s hockey gold medal, 3-2 in overtime. The Americans had defeated their northern neighbors (and in some cases, NHL teammates) 5-3 in the preliminary round. The Canadians looked like they had the gold wrapped up in regulation in the final until the U.S. tied the game at 2-2 with just 24 seconds left. But Sidney Crosby, the biggest of Canadian hockey stars, tallied just over 7½ minutes into the overtime period to set off a massive celebration inside the arena, outside on the streets of Vancouver, and across all of Canada.
(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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