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Wednesday Weekly…June 11, 2025.
By the time close friends Leon Rice of Boise State and Mark Few of Gonzaga finally meet on the basketball court for the first time a little over a year and a half from now, the Zags advantage will be, shall we say, even more pronounced. With the House vs. NCAA settlement approved, schools are allowed to spend up to $20.5 million paying their athletes during the next academic year. Note that it’s not “football schools,” just “schools.” So with Gonzaga not having to worry about football, it can load up on its legendary men’s basketball program and have plenty of funds left over for women’s hoops and Olympic sports. It’s great for the Pac-12, but it might not be so much fun for the conference teams that have to face the Bulldogs. Saint Mary’s will have that non-football edge, too. Maybe that swings that Pac-12 door open for the Gaels?
FUTURE ‘THIS DAY IN SPORTS’ ITEM
June 6 will be remembered as a D-Day for of sorts for college sports if everything comes to pass. The House vs. NCAA settlement got final approval Friday night, opening the door for schools to directly pay their athletes beginning July 1. There will be appeals and challenges, but the expectation is that about 75 percent of the dollars will go to football, 15 percent to men’s basketball, and the rest to Olympic sports. Boise State athletic director Jeramiah Dickey immediately embraced it, saying the Broncos have been planning for it for the past year. Dickey’s not ready to say yet what Boise State’s revenue-sharing pool will be, but in a post to a fan, he said, “We do more with less than anyone in the country.” This momentous decision comes a mere four years after NIL payments to athletes first became legal.
NEXT NEWS FLASH SHOULD BE PAC-12
Sure is a lot of news for what is normally a quiet time of the college sports year. Multiple reports Tuesday said all eight of the Pac-12 schools that are aboard so far have signed their grant-of-rights agreements with the rebuilding conference. That means a media rights agreement is around the corner (at long last). John Canzano reports that Pac-12 leaders met Tuesday via video call to—at the very least—go over everything. Like I said recently, this is like smoke coming out of a chimney in Vatican City. The next domino will be the long-awaited eighth football member of the league. It sure sounds like UNLV has boxed itself out of discussions. So can it be Memphis in football and basketball only? Texas State in all sports? UTSA, too? Those seem like the most likely possibilities outside of UNLV, but anything can happen.
THE PRIVATE EQUITY ARENA
Boise State is “actively considering” bringing private equity investment into athletics, AD Jeramiah Dickey told Front Office Sports the other day, hoping to raise more of that revenue to share. Dickey confirmed that Tuesday on Idaho SportsTalk. “Our expectations don’t match our resources,” he told Prater & The Ballgame. “I don’t want to do status quo—that’s not how I’m built.” Well, private equity is certainly not status quo in college sports. If Dickey’s able to engineer such an agreement, it will be the most important transaction of his administrative career. All the T’s will have to be crossed and the I’s dotted, because private equity firms are in it for return on investment. The Boise State athletic department would need to remain autonomous in case anything goes sideways. “It’s an area I think is worth considering,” said Dickey.
DON’T BLINK DURING BOWL SEASON
If the LA Bowl continues to be the destination for the Mountain West champion, the 2025 bowl schedule released last week makes it kind of hollow. The game will be played on Saturday, December 13, just one week after the Mountain West championship game. Blink, and it’s over and forgotten. There’s one way to avoid that scenario: do what Boise State did last year. Skip the LA Bowl and make the College Football Playoff. You could argue that the Broncos’ layoff was too long—it was 25 days until the Fiesta Bowl against Penn State. But it was a nice problem to have, as it was an unforgettable ride. Meanwhile, the good thing about the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl is that it is actually played during the holidays, albeit on a Monday afternoon. That one will tee it up on December 22 on the blue turf.
IS LEON DONE NOW?
Leon Rice’s “we are done” asterisk No. 2. The addition of Ray Ray Bergerson two weeks ago filled a walk-on spot at Boise State. But there’s been yet another addition, as it appears Rice has doled out a scholarship to Aginaldo Neto, a long-pursued 6-1 point guard who has played for NBA Academy Africa and the Angolan national team and played last season at Bella Vista Prep in Arizona. There are no stats immediately available for Neto, so you’d think the true freshman has redshirt written all over him. But the Broncos may not want to wait. He’ll be able to serve an apprenticeship of sorts next season under Dylan Andrews, the transfer from UCLA. Boise State assistant coach Mike Burns went to Africa to recruit Neto, and it sure as heck paid off.
CARDENAS READY FOR SPANISH DISHES
I’m looking forward to tracking Alvaro Cardenas’ pro career in his native Spain. It won’t be hard to do now, as he was signed by Valencia Basket, which plays in Liga ACB, the top level of Spanish pro hoops. Cardenas’ European experience paid off in his one season at Boise State, where he became the Broncos’ single-season assists record-holder by dishing out 256. “This is a move made with an eye on the future,” said Valencia sporting director Luis Arbalejo (according to Sports Illustrated). “Alvaro made significant progress during his time in the U.S., establishing himself as an excellent passer and true playmaker.”
BOISE HAWKS BACK IN THE MIX
The Boise Hawks’ recovery from the first five games of the season essentially continued last week, as they split a six-game series with the Ogden Raptors. The Hawks won the final two, including an 18-9 romp last Sunday. That meant 10 wins in 13 games after going 0-5 against Idaho Falls to start the campaign. Well, Tuesday night, the Hawks began a three-game set across the state versus those dreaded Chukars, and a football game broke out. Idaho Falls won 24-19. Not a typo. Hawks starter Jeremiah Locklear gave up 11 runs in 1 1/3 innings. The teams combined for 39 hits—Idaho Falls rapped nine doubles, and Boise hit four home runs.
HILLARY KNIGHT STILL LACING ‘EM UP
Remember Hillary Knight, the Sun Valley hockey icon who has starred on the U.S. Olympic team? Well, she’s still around at the age of 35, but she’s on the move. Knight has been playing for Boston is the fast-growing Professional Women’s Hockey League. But the PWHL is adding Seattle and Vancouver next season, and Boston left Knight, the Fleet’s team captain, unprotected in the expansion draft. So Knight is headed to the new Seattle franchise. She’s still an elite player, having led the league in scoring last season with 29 points in 30 games.
DOC WADE
Very sad to hear of the passing of Dr. George Wade, the Boise State team doctor who bridged the gap between the Broncos’ old glory days and the new ones. Wade joined the program in 1979, in time for the Division I-AA national championship the following year. And he served for well over three decades, into the Fiestas of the new century. Doc Wade put a lot of Bronco Humpty Dumptys back together again. And I’m glad he was finally inducted into the Boise State Athletic Hall of Fame. Wade was voted in during the 2020 Covid year and didn’t get his ceremony until 2022. But he was there—and it was great.
This Day In Sports…brought to you by POOL SCOUTS…perfect pools, scout’s honor!
June 11, 1982: The BSU Pavilion hosts its first sporting event, a closed-circuit telecast of a Larry Holmes-Gerry Cooney bout from Caesar’s Place in Las Vegas (Holmes won it on a 10th-round technical knockout). The first basketball game in the Pavilion was an NBA exhibition in October of that year. In November of 1982, Boise State hoops made its Pavilion debut with a 71-59 loss to Michigan State. The first of nine Boise stagings of the NCAA Tournament’s first and second rounds came in 1983. The Pavilion’s name was changed to Taco Bell Arena in 2004, and it became ExtraMile Arena in 2019. On current athletic director Jeramiah Dickey’s to-do list: loge boxes and club seats in the 43-year-old facility.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra and anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK. He also served as color commentator on KTVB’s telecasts of Boise State football for 14 seasons.)
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