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Monday, March 17, 2014.
There was one too many a team that won its conference regular season title and lost in its league tournament. You could see the dominoes tipping last week, and in the end there wasn’t room for Boise State in the National Invitation Tournament. So the Broncos, having been nixed by the NIT, decided not to pursue a berth in one of the minor postseason events and call it a season. The reason given was injuries, Jeff Elorriaga’s broken bone in the back and Anthony Drmic’s stress fracture in particular. When you combine that with the disappointment of not reaching their goals this season, perhaps the CBI or CIT wasn’t going to provide a very fulfilling experience.
The decision to pass on the alphabet soup tournaments would not have made sense three years ago, when Boise State went after a berth in the CBI. At that time, the Broncos were on the rise in Leon Rice’s first year and had momentum going, ending the regular season with a seven-game winning streak and adding another victory in the WAC Tournament before falling to Utah State in the conference championship game. The CBI was a natural progression, and Boise State defeated Austin Peay and Evansville at home before losing at Oregon in the semifinals. In 2014, with the high expectations placed on this season, the CBI was not a natural progression.
That leaves Friday night’s 70-67 Mountain West Tournament semifinal loss to New Mexico as the final memory of a 2013-14 season that ends at 21-13. That defeat in itself isn’t a disappointment. As good as New Mexico is, that could have happened even if the conference regular season had gone as Boise State had planned, and it was only three points. The game against the Lobos had a start that was not entirely unfamiliar, as the Broncos missed 12 of their first 14 field goals. New Mexico, bolstered by a huge throng that had ventured up to Las Vegas from Albuquerque, had a 10-point lead six minutes into the game. But that would be the largest deficit Boise State would face all night, and it nipped at the Lobos’ heels until the final buzzer. The ending doesn’t feel horrible.
San Diego State lost 64-58 to New Mexico in the Mountain West championship game. Now the Aztecs have to face the Lobos’ cross-state rival in the in the NCAA Tournament Thursday night. What’s more, the Aggies beat UNM in the Pit in December. SDSU is a No. 4 seed, playing in Spokane. New Mexico’s seed is No. 7, lower than it should be. The Lobos face Stanford in the second round (I still think of it as the first round) on Friday. UNLV, like Boise State, was passed over by the NIT and has decided to end its season. Fresno State and Wyoming, however, were excited to play on in the CBI. The Bulldogs visit UTEP, and the Cowboys go to Texas A&M—both those games are on Wednesday.
The Idaho men made a Cinderella run in the WAC Tournament before running into New Mexico State and 7-5 center Sim Bhullar, falling 77-55 in the championship game. The Aggies had a 38-21 advantage on the boards, with Bhullar pulling down nine rebounds. He kind of looks like a cartoon character out there. Bhullar’s not very fast and is occasionally clumsy, but try shooting over him. Idaho senior Stephen Madison, Idaho’s second all-time leading scorer, led the Vandals with 17 points after going 10-for-12 at the free throw line. Idaho finishes the season at 16-18 after winning eight of its final 11 games. The Vandal women, meanwhile, won their second straight WAC title with a 75-67 victory over Seattle. They’ll learn their NCAA Tournament opponent today at 5 p.m.
The Idaho Stampede needed a weekend like this. Trying to salvage their D-League playoff hopes, the Stampede swept Reno in CenturyLink Arena, topping it off Saturday night with a 101-99 victory on a clutch jumper by Kevin Murphy. Which is kind of what Murphy has done in the absence of Pierre Jackson. Murphy put up a game-high 32 points after sharing scoring honors in Friday night’s 111-101 win with Allen Crabbe at 23 points. Crabbe, the Portland Trail Blazers assignee, and the newly-acquired Vander Blue both came up big in the fourth quarter of Friday’s game, scoring eight and nine points respectively. The Stamps are now one game behind the Iowa Energy in the race for the eighth and final playoff spot.
Today is Pro Day at Boise State, and it’ll mark the first time quarterback Joe Southwick has been around the Bronco program since being sent home from the Hawaii Bowl a few days before Christmas. Southwick will go through the paces in front of NFL scouts, to be joined by former teammates Geraldo Boldewijn, Aaron Burks, Trevor Harman, Demarcus Lawrence, Charles Leno Jr., Matt Paradis and Ricky Tjong-A-Tjoe. Lawrence, Leno and Paradis participated in the NFL Combine in February.
The Idaho Steelheads were pleased as punch after their trip to Bakersfield over the weekend, having swept the Condors 4-1 and 4-2. The Steelheads’ propensity for third period scoring served them well Saturday night, as all four of their goals came in the final stanza. Then they went on to Ontario, and the Reign shellshocked the Steelies in the first period and rolled to a 6-2 win. Ontario tallied three times in the first—then, with Idaho trailing 4-2 and on a power play in the third period, Ryan Button was called for interference. The Reign scored a couple minutes later to put it away. Steelheads goalie Pat Nagle was pulled about three minutes into the third period in favor of newly-signed rookie Kevin Kapalka. The Steelies are back at CenturyLink Arena Wednesday night to host Colorado.
How about Graham DeLaet rallying to make the cut at the Valspar Championship after carding a 75 last Thursday? Not only that, the former Boise State star made a charge over the weekend, shooting a three-under 68 in the final round to finish in a tie for eighth. DeLaet capped it with a 215-yard tee shot to within two feet of the hole on the par-3 17th. He had the top driving distance of the week, averaging 305 yards off the tee. It was DeLaet’s fifth top 10 finish of the season and earned him $148,200.
More campus cruising: the 19th-ranked Boise State men’s tennis team swept Idaho State and Virginia Tech Saturday by 7-0 and 4-3 counts. True freshman Brendan McClain delivered the decisive victory in singles (coach Greg Patton called it “stomach-curdling”) as the Broncos improved to 13-3. Boise State’s Emma Bates placed fourth in both the 3,000-meters and 5,000-meters at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships. The two All-America honors Bates garnerned over the weekend marked the sixth and seventh of her career, making her the most decorated Boise State track and field athlete in program history. The Boise State women’s softball won three of four games at the Springhill Suites Invitational at Dona Larsen Park, and the College of Idaho baseball squad was swept in a four-game series at perennial power Lewis-Clark State.
It’s St. Patrick’s Day. That means Lyle Smith’s birthday. And the Father of Bronco Football is 98 years old today. Smith, who built Boise Junior College into a powerhouse in the late 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s, is considered the man who inspired the Boise State program to grow into what it is today. His career record at BJC was 156-26-6, with five undefeated seasons, a 37-game winning streak, 51 shutouts, and the school’s original national championship—in the JC ranks in 1958. Happy birthday, Lyle. We wouldn’t miss it.
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March 17, 1983: Boise State hosts rounds one and two of the NCAA Tournament for the first time. The field back then was only 52 teams, so there were just two first-day games in the Pavilion instead of four. Washington State beat Big Sky champion Weber State, and Utah upset Illinois in the first round. Two days later, the Utes would shock UCLA, 67-61, after Virginia and Ralph Sampson edged Wazzu, 54-49.
(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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