Presented by MOUNTAIN WEST BANK.
Tuesday, January 20, 2015.
There’s usually a lot of competition for this award in a solid basketball conference. But this had to be no contest—Boise State’s Derrick Marks is the Mountain West Player of the Week after the Broncos’ wins over UNLV and New Mexico. Marks put up 28 points in the overtime triumph over the Rebels, including the tying basket with 16 seconds left in regulation to send the game to OT. The memories of Marks’ performance in the 69-59 win at New Mexico Sunday are fresh. He scored 31 points, 22 of them in the second half. Marks moved into the top 10 in scoring in Mountain West history with his big game in Albuquerque. He passed BYU’s Lee Cummard and now has 1,589 points in his career. This is Marks’ second player of the week honor of the season and the sixth of his career.
Boise State has played four games in the new year so far, and Marks is averaging 26.5 points per game in those contests. Also, his four 30-point games this season are a school record, adding to his career record for 30-pointers that currently stands at eight. He’s been helped this season, as always, by his free throw shooting, with 82½-percent accuracy that ranks second in the Mountain West. It seems that all his misfires have come late in games. Marks missed what looked like a crucial front-end of a one-and-one at the 1:23 mark at The Pit Sunday. Somewhere, somebody was thinking, “Uh-oh.” Then Marks made two free throws with 1:05 left and another pair with 41 seconds remaining to eclipse the 30-point plateau.
If you’re looking at Boise State’s Nick Duncan with your glass half-empty, you’ll see that he was 2-for-10, including 2-for-9 from three-point range in Sunday’s win at New Mexico. If you’re a glass half-full person, you’ll notice that his second three-pointer of the day was a pressurized one with 3½ minutes left that broke the final tie of the game, giving Boise State a 58-55 lead. Duncan clearly has the green light to try to shoot his way out of his prolonged slump, and the Broncos were rewarded in The Pit. He also grabbed a defensive rebound and dropped in two clinching free throws in the final minute.
Wyoming was drummed out of the Top 25 this week after its home loss to San Diego State last week. Not a bad loss by any means. There are no Mountain West teams in the new rankings, but the Aztecs are bubbling under again—third in line among “others receiving votes” in the AP Poll and second in line on the Coaches list. Colorado State is right behind, and the Cowboys are still receiving votes. Tonight’s Mountain West game has SDSU visiting Air Force.
Winter conditioning kicks off today for Boise State football. It sounds innocent enough, but coaches and staff will tell you this is where team chemistry and bonding come from, with superior physical shape a byproduct. A year ago, with the Broncos coming off an 8-5 season and a lackluster loss to Oregon State in the Hawaii Bowl—and working under a new staff and strength and conditioning coach (Jeff Pitman)—winter conditioning and the sense of purpose that came with it set the table for the 2014 season.
Boise State doesn’t have the same chip on its shoulder that it did last year with Fiesta Bowl rings on the way. So the Broncos just have to set the bar higher. How refreshed they are from their holiday break remains to be seen. Winter drills begin a week earlier this year because of the way the school calendar falls. Furthermore, the Broncos played their bowl game on Christmas Eve in 2013, and not until New Year’s Eve in 2014. So, whereas they had a 34-day break between the end of the season and the start of conditioning last January, this time it’s only 19 days.
Update on Capital High grad Hailey Duke, who skied for the U.S. at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver before beginning a battle with a brain tumor. The 29-year-old Duke, now fully healthy, is still on the road in Europe but has had to ski independently the past two years after losing her spot on the U.S. team following her tumor. Duke raises money to cover expenses through the Hailey Duke Project, doggedly supported by her dad, Larry (info at HaileyDuke.com). She has her sights set on the World Championships next month in Beaver Creek, CO. Duke hasn’t qualified in any of the six World Cup events she’s entered this season, but she’s had some success on the FIS circuit. In her latest race, Duke finished fourth in an FIS slalom last Thursday at Madesimo, Italy.
The Idaho Stampede got a big game out of Atlanta Hawks assignee John Jenkins, but it wasn’t enough to prevent another defeat yesterday at the D-League Showcase in Santa Cruz. Jenkins scored 28 points, including four three-pointers, in a 114-109 loss to Fort Wayne. Shane Gibson added 23 points and pulled a James Webb, going 7-for-7 from three-point land. Over the last nine games, Gibson has averaged 19 points and has hit 3½ three-pointers per game. The loss was the 20th of the season for the Stampede against just four victories. The Stamps now head to Bakersfield for a pair of games this weekend.
It was, by the way, a clean sweep of Mountain West hoops awards for Boise State, as Brooke Pahukoa was named Women’s Player of the Week. Pahukoa contributed 14 points against UNLV and 20 versus New Mexico in a pair of Bronco wins. The key stretch for the sophomore guard came immediately after halftime against the Lobos Saturday, with Boise State having trailed by four at the break. Pahukoa hit three consecutive three-pointers to account for the Broncos’ first nine points of the second half, igniting a 52-27 Bronco blitz in the final 20 minutes.
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January 20, 1985, 30 years ago today: In a matchup of two of the best quarterbacks in NFL history, San Francisco’s Joe Montana is the decisive winner over Miami’s Dan Marino in Super Bowl XIX. For the first time ever, both quarterbacks in the Super Bowl threw for over 300 yards. But Montana added 59 rushing yards to his 331 yards passing, and the 49ers blew the game open with three second-quarter touchdowns on the way to a 38-16 victory at Stanford Stadium. It would be the only Super Bowl appearance of Marino’s NFL career.
(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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