Presented by WESTERN SIDING.
Thursday, February 26, 2015.
One line in the Boise State box score has been getting increasing attention during this run through the Mountain West schedule: turnovers. The Broncos turned the ball over only five times in the 76-65 win over New Mexico Tuesday night. That was a season low. They’re 12th among the nation’s 345 Division I teams in fewest turnovers at 10.0 per game. Of the 11 teams ahead of them, all have winning records and three have won 25 games already. Boise State has logged 13 games this season with fewer than 10 turnovers and only three with more than 13. That’s been a hallmark of Leon Rice’s Bronco teams, though. Rewinding through Rice’s previous four seasons, BSU has yielded 10.0, 12.0, 12.2 and 12.1 turnovers per game.
Boise State stayed at No. 42 in the NCAA’s RPI after beating New Mexico. That demonstrates how important strength-of-schedule is. Hey, the Broncos were No. 41 before drubbing Nevada by 32 points last Saturday. Boise State is third among Mountain West teams behind No. 25 San Diego State and No. 26 Colorado State, both of whom the Broncos have beaten. Saturday’s rematch with the Aztecs before a raucous full house in Viejas Arena is huge from that standpoint—a shot at a win over a team in the RPI’s top 25. For perspective, some of the teams just behind Boise State in the RPI are Texas, Ohio State, Oregon, UCLA and Cincinnati. The Broncos’ cause has been helped this season by six true road wins and three more neutral-site wins.
Did I harp enough on 9 p.m. tipoffs the other day? Attendance at the New Mexico game took a hit because of it, as only 4,991 showed up to see a Boise State team that had just reached the 20-win plateau take on the defending Mountain West champion. It’s too late now for the Broncos to see an overall increase in attendance from last season. They averaged 6,810 fans per game last season and sit at 5,349 now with one game to play. The crowd would have to total 25,805 for Senior Night a week from Saturday. That’s two complete sellouts crammed into one game.
Boise State is eighth in attendance in the Mountain West, which as a conference averages 7,303 fans per game. There are surely other culprits, such as the MW’s down year and the lack of a marquee opponent on the non-conference schedule. But those tipoff times—yikes. New Mexico should still have enough cache to draw 8,000. There was hardly a kid in the audience Tuesday.
The Boise State football program, tied into a series with BYU through 2022, must be watching this from afar with a certain curiosity. BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe said at a media roundtable Tuesday that it is the Cougars’ intention to be “playing in a power conference in the near future.” But of course it is. Haven’t heard about any invitations being doled out, though. Some suggest that as a fallback plan BYU will try to get a “scheduling arrangement” going with the Big 12 similar to what Notre Dame has with the ACC.
Writes Kevin McGuire of NBCSports.com: “BYU’s most likely scenario may end up crawling back to the Mountain West Conference, but this is not considered a power conference. BYU is going to have to convince the Big 12 to accept them, and we have been down this road so many times to know what the chances are of this happening.” That goes for Boise State, too. And geography doesn’t help either school. With that said, there’s an assumption out there that the Broncos are sitting idly by while other schools lobby for inclusion in the Power 5. Well, I’d venture to say Dr. Bob Kustra is making as many overtures as any mid-major university. We can’t pretend to know all that is going on behind the scenes.
The Idaho Steelheads grabbed their fourth straight win with a 4-1 decision at Bakersfield last night, disappointing a solid crowd of 8,751 in Rabobank Arena. The Steelheads are now back within a point of first-place Colorado in the ECHL Pacific Division. Goalie Jack Campbell was the stalwart, recording 33 saves in picking up his fifth victory since joining Idaho. The Steelies pulled away in the third period with a goal from Brett Robinson with 5½ minutes remaining and an empty-netter by Mike Dalhuisen in the final minute. The Steelheads are now 29-0-2 this season when scoring three or more goals.
The winter West Coast swing is complete now on the PGA Tour, with the circuit switching to Florida now for the teeoff of the Honda Classic today. Former Boise State star Troy Merritt will take some time off now, but fellow ex-Bronco Graham DeLaet will carry on after tying for eighth last week at the Northern Trust Open. DeLaet has earned $468,373 this season with two top 10 finishes, both this month. Merritt has made the cut in five of his 10 events this season and has made $92,914.
The College of Idaho’s 31-game homecourt winning streak became 32 last night with a 71-64 win over Oregon Tech in the Cascade Conference quarterfinals. A crowd of just under 1,000 watched in the J.A. Albertson Activities Center. The Coyotes went into the game as the unofficial leader in NAIA Division II in attendance, averaging 1,640 fans per game. That number is the second-highest in college basketball in the state of Idaho, edging the Idaho State Bengals (1,511) and the Idaho Vandals (1,100). It also tops the average of two Mountain West schools, Air Force (1,611) and San Jose State (1,542).
We’ve talked a little this winter of good old-fashioned Big Sky roadtrips and homestands for Idaho. This week it’s home dates versus Montana tonight and Montana State Saturday night in Cowan Spectrum. The Grizzlies are tied for first in the conference with Sacramento State and boast the league’s longest current winning streak at five. Elsewhere, the Boise State women shot just 27 percent and fell to 9-6 in the Mountain West with a 63-50 loss to New Mexico last night in The Pit. The Lobos avenged a 21-point loss to the Broncos last month in Taco Bell Arena.
This Day In Sports…brought to you by ZAMZOW’S…nobody knows like Zamzows!
February 26, 1972: Boise State forward Steve Wallace ties the school single-game record for rebounds with 22 boards in the Broncos’ 94-63 win over Montana. The 22 rebounds is a BSU record to this day, shared by Bill Otey, who did it twice in 1968-69. Wallace averaged a double-double for the season—that wouldn’t happen again at Boise State until Ryan Watkins did it last season. Wallace is still second behind Otey in Bronco career rebounding, averaging 10.4 boards per game.
(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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