Presented by ZAMZOWS.
This Day In Sports…February 13, 2021, five years ago today:
Leon Rice becomes the winningest men’s basketball coach in Boise State history with a 61-59 win over UNLV in ExtraMile Arena, although only a handful of people witness it in person due to COVID-19 restrictions. Rice’s 214th victory surpassed the record set by Bobby Dye, who won 213 games from 1983-95. Interestingly enough, it was the Broncos’ second straight win over the Rebels, as the Mountain West’s COVID plan had teams playing two-game series in one team’s venue throughout the season.
Rice, who was hired by the Broncos in 2010 after 11 seasons as an assistant at Gonzaga, was in his 11th year with the Broncos and had posted 20-win seasons in eight of his previous 10. (He is currently seeking his 13th 20-win campaign in 16 seasons.) Rice has guided Boise State to five NCAA Tournament bids, including the first four at-large berths in school history.
Development has always been at the core of Rice’s Boise State program, as Chandler Hutchison blossomed into the school’s first-ever first round pick in the NBA Draft in 2018. Rice also mentored Justinian Jessup, who was a second-round pick of the Golden State Warriors in 2020. But the best developmental story of all may have been that of Derrick Alston Jr., who redshirted in 2016-17 before averaging all of 0.6 points per game the following season.
By the time Alston was a senior, he was first-team All-Mountain West and putting up 17.0 points per game. In Rice’s record-clinching victory over UNLV, the importance of Alston to the program was at the forefront. He was the only Bronco in double figures that night—but it was major double figures: 27 points. He was 8-for-16 from the field, including 6-for-8 from three-point range. Alston, who went undrafted after the season, is now flourishing in the EuroLeague, playing for Virtus Bologna in Italy.
Dye was the coach who elevated Boise State men’s basketball in the 1980s, taking over the program in 1983, one year after the BSU Pavilion (now ExtraMile Arena) opened. Things exploded in Dye’s fourth season, when the Broncos went 23-7 and earned their first NIT berth and NIT victory. In 1988, he led one of Boise State’s best teams to a 24-6 record and its first Big Sky championship and NCAA Tournament berth since 1976. Those years were punctuated by the most consistently large crowds—and the noisiest crowds—in school history. CDye took the Broncos to two more Big Dances before he stepped down in 1995.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
