Presented by CORSO ITALIAN STEAK.
This Day In Sports…February 10, 2016, 10 years ago today:
Not just the one that got away, but the one that was devastatingly taken away from Boise State. In overtime at Colorado State, the Broncos inbounded with 0.8 seconds left, and James Webb III banked in a three-pointer at the buzzer, giving them a dramatic win. The ESPN.com feed had already declared it final in overtime, an 87-84 victory for Boise State. The site had changed the Broncos’ record to 17-8 overall and 8-4 in the Mountain West.
But the officials, after reviewing an imbedded stopwatch on a replay (you can do that?), ruled Webb didn’t get the shot off in time. The Broncos, who thought they had won the game, didn’t have much emotional gas left for a second overtime, and Colorado State won 97-93. It was hard to remember a tougher loss. The story blew up nationally, especially after the Mountain West released the video “proof.” The evidence instead showed the imbedded stopwatch was running too fast. The conference backtracked, saying the shot should have counted. But the game’s result would not be reversed.
Numerous ESPN analysts, while decrying the Mountain West’s process, broke the shot down and determined it took 0.7 seconds or less for Webb to get the ball out of his hands. Even CSU’s hometown paper, the Coloradoan, wondered about the fairness of it all. “It’s hard to understand how this is the right call,” wrote Matt Stephens. Boise State had battled, draining a then-school record 18 three-pointers (not counting Webb’s canceled one) with Anthony Drmic hobbling and Chandler Hutchison sitting out for academic reasons.
The loss didn’t matter in the big picture, as the Broncos finished the Mountain West season in third place, two games out of the No. 2 seed in the conference tournament. But it took something out of them. The regular season ended with a stunning 68-63 loss at San Jose State, followed by an 88-81 defeat at the hands of CSU in the quarterfinals of the Mountain West Tournament. Boise State, at 20-12 overall, was left out of the NIT and elected to sit out the CBI and CIT, two other secondary postseason tournaments at the time. The decision left Drmic at 1,942 career points, just two short of Tanoka Beard’s Boise State record.
(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.)
