Presented by COMMERCIAL TIRE.
This Day In Sports…March 9, 2015:
Toward the end of its 47th season of four-year basketball, Boise State nabs the first Top 25 ranking in school history. The Broncos made the AP Poll at No. 25 after capturing a share of the Mountain West regular season championship two days earlier by defeating Fresno State 71-52 in Taco Bell Arena. Boise State earned the top seed in the Mountain West Tournament, having won 14 of its previous 15 games following an 0-3 conference start.
The following day, senior Derrick Marks would be named Mountain West Player of the Year, Boise State’s first league MVP since Roberto Bergersen in 1999. The Broncos’ Leon Rice would also nab Coach of the Year honors, and sophomore James Webb III would be MW Newcomer of the Year. That squad also included Mikey Thompson, Nick Duncan and true freshman Chandler Hutchison.
The water cooler debate thus began: was this the best Boise State basketball team ever? That designation, at least up to that point, had gone to the 1987-88 squad that went 24-6, won the Big Sky regular season and tournament championships, and lost just 63-58 in the NCAA Tournament to a Michigan team that would win it all the following year. The starting five, Chris Childs, Doug Usitalo, Arnell Jones, Wilson Foster and Greg Dodd, was still eminently familiar to anyone who was around back then.
But judgment was reserved until after the league tournament. Alas, the Broncos were upset 71-66 by Wyoming in the Mountain West semifinals—and the “best ever” issue was, shall we say, unresolved. That was the year Boise State, with an at-large berth in the NCAA Tournament, was sent to the First Four in Dayton to play against…Dayton, which rallied to beat the Broncos 56-55. (The selection procedure has since been tweaked to avoid something like that happening again.)
Boise State has been ranked only one other time in program history. That appearance also lasted only a week, coming in the final rankings of the 2021-22 season, when the Broncos reached a record high of No. 23. It’s safe to call that team the best in school history, as it won the Mountain West regular season title and was top-seeded in the conference tournament, winning the title with a 53-52 victory over San Diego State. They earned a program-best No. 8 seed in the NCAA Tournament (where they fell to Memphis) and finished with a school-record 27 wins.
(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.)
