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Wednesday, February 25, 2015.
Boise State’s Nick Duncan was canning the three-fruit last night (I just made that up). But the Sydney sophomore was feelin’ it, draining eight three-pointers and scoring a career-high 26 points in a 76-65 win over New Mexico that wasn’t that close. Duncan began the game with back-to-back threes after Derrick Marks had scored the Broncos’ first seven points. Then Duncan’s timing became uncanny. When the Lobos took their only lead of the game at 14-13, he answered with a trey. When UNM got it as close as it would get in the second half at 43-36, Duncan replied with consecutive three-pointers. The Lobos later rolled off an 11-2 run, and he hit another bomb from beyond the arc. Duncan’s eight makes from long-range are the most by a Bronco in a conference game in eight years.
To call Marks’ latest 30-point game effortless does a disservice to the senior star, but that’s the way it looked. Marks was relaxed on the floor and scored every which way, including five of Boise State’s 15 three-pointers, and went 12-for-20 from the field. He added five rebounds, five assists and two steals and had zero turnovers. It was Marks’ 10th career 30-point game and his sixth this season, extending his school records on both counts. With 1,814 career points, Marks is now 130 from Tanoka Beard’s Bronco career scoring record, which at the beginning of the season looked unreachable for him. Now it’s not impossible.
Boise State’s victory over New Mexico clinched a first-round bye in the Mountain West Tournament in two weeks and moves the Broncos directly into the quarterfinals. They’re now 21-7 overall and 11-4 in league play, their most conference wins since joining the Mountain West. And now Boise State knows it’ll be playing for first place in the MW on Saturday when it visits San Diego State in sold-out Viejas Arena, a game to be telecast in prime time on ESPN2. The Broncos have now swept three season series this year (Air Force, UNLV and New Mexico). They had only two total season sweeps total in their first three years in the Mountain West.
Here’s another perspective on Boise State’s Jay Ajayi as the two-month hypefest on the NFL Draft ramps up. The fantasy football perspective. In his “Fantasy Rookie RB Class of 2015,” ESPN.com’s Christopher Harris ranks Ajayi No. 3 behind Georgia’s Todd Gurley and Wisconsin’s Melvin Gordon. “Ajayi may not be spectacular at anything, but he does everything well and if he lands in the right spot, could be a three-down player,” writes Harris. “He's not a pure bruiser and he's not a sprinter, but Ajayi is a subtle, sneaky player with tremendous balance and he's the kind of hard charger who can lift an offense.” Nice, but I do think Ajayi is enough of a bruiser.
Comparables are always interesting with Ajayi, and you’ll be hearing plenty of them. Here’s what Harris says: “Ajayi's best case is someone like Matt Forte; there's a jack-of-all-trades feel about his game. But maybe we shouldn't shoot quite so high, especially when Ajayi doesn't have tons of tape against elite collegiate competition. ( Then again, neither did Forte!) Anyway, I feel I can put Ajayi safely in the Ahmad Bradshaw category, which is pretty darned good.”
The Idaho Steelheads’ Central Valley road trip continues tonight with the opening of a three-game series at Bakersfield. Fast starts have been huge for the Steelheads this season—they’re 27-3-3 when getting on the board first, and they’ve outscored opponents 67-32 in the first period. The Steelies, who swept three games at Stockton last week, are tasked with cooling off another hot team. The Condors have won four of their last five games despite a continuing rash of injures and AHL callups, with goalie Maxime Lagace coming off his second career shutout last Saturday.
The Pittsburgh Pirates held their first full workout of spring training yesterday, and the spotlight on former Boise Hawk Josh Harrison has never been brighter. In the MLB Network’s rundown of this year’s top players, Harrison is tabbed No. 3 among all third basemen in baseball after his breakout 2014 season. Harrison played 72 games at third base for the Pirates in 2014, although he started there only 55 times. He hit .315 with 13 homers and 18 stolen bases in 143 games, finishing ninth in National League MVP voting and making the All-Star Game.
Interestingly, former Hawk Josh Donaldson, now a Toronto Blue Jay, is No. 2 on the list. Donaldson and the Jays work out for the first time on Thursday. A lot of folks (me included) still don’t understand how Oakland could have traded Donaldson. Even in rebuilding mode, shouldn’t the A’s have retained a power-hitting anchor? Oh well. Donaldson clubbed 29 home runs and had 98 RBI last season despite hitting just .255. At age 29, he’s in the prime of his career. The top third baseman as named by the MLB Network was Adrian Beltre of the Texas Rangers.
Circling back to hoops: the Idaho Stampede will be without power forward Jack Cooley when they host Rio Grande Valley this weekend, but that’s the way the D-League is supposed to work. The Utah Jazz, who released Cooley at the end of the preseason, have signed him to a 10-day contract. The former Notre Dame star injured a thumb on Opening Night and didn’t return until early January. Since then, though, he has recorded nine double-doubles, and his last two were especially impressive. Cooley scored 25 points with 20 rebounds last Wednesday versus Austin—then put up 23 points and 15 rebounds against Bakersfield last Saturday, leading the Stamps to only their sixth win of the season. At the same time, the Jazz have
There should be a chip on the College of Idaho's collective shoulder tonight when it hosts Oregon Tech in a Cascade Conference quarterfinal at the J.A. Albertson Activities Center. Yes, the Coyotes are the tournament's top seed and defending champion, but they are not the outright Cascade regular season champs after being upset at Northwest University Saturday night. The Yotes had to settle for a three-way split with Concordia and Warner Pacific. They're now ranked sixth in NAIA Division II.
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February 25, 2010, five years ago today: Boise’s Jeret “Speedy” Peterson lands his famed Hurricane jump and wins a silver medal in the men’s aerials at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Peterson had missed landing the Hurricane at Torino four years earlier, finishing seventh. He was then sent home by the U.S. team after a drunken fight with a close friend. Peterson’s life took many difficult turns after that, leading to a hiatus from competitive skiing. But Speedy quit drinking, returned to the World Cup circuit, and made the U.S. squad for the Vancouver Games. Then he stuck a jump with the highest degree of difficulty in Olympic aerials history. Peterson’s story would end tragically exactly 17 months later, though, when he took his own life.
(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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