BOISE, Idaho — This article originally appeared in the Idaho Press.
As impressive as the Boise State men's basketball team had looked in Mountain West play, the Broncos had lacked a truly dominating victory in league play, said John Wustrow with the Idaho Press.
Consider Saturday’s win against Air Force as one that falls into that category. The Broncos pulled away at the end of the first half and controlled the entirety of the second half to come away with a huge 94-56 win against the Falcons after each of their first eight conference games had been decided by single digits.
“It was great just to do what we do, get stops go in transition and score,” said Tyson Degenhart, who had a career-high 29 points for the Broncos. “We played a really good game tonight.”
Boise State (16-6, 7-2 Mountain West) picked up its largest margin of victory ever against Air Force and its largest margin of victory in a Mountain West game since beating San Jose State by 52 in 2020. The Broncos also pulled even with Utah State for the Mountain West lead at the halfway point of league play after the Aggies fell to San Diego State earlier Saturday.
Watch the full game:
The Broncos and Aggies face off next Saturday in Logan, Utah. Boise State first plays at Colorado State on Tuesday.
“I think a big thing is not getting comfortable right now,” said Chibuzo Agbo, who had 14 points in the win. “We’re in first right now, but we have so much more to go. Every game matters, we just have to be so locked in.”
The Broncos were certainly locked in in the final 25 minutes of the game, outscoring the Falcons (8-13, 1-8) 16-0 over the final five minutes of the first half and shooting lights out in the second half.
Boise State shot 69.6% (16 of 23) from the field over the course of the final 20 minutes, including 71.4% (10 of 14) from 3-point range. Additionally, the Broncos were 11 for 12 from the free throw line in the second half as anything a Boise State player put up seemed to go in.
Perhaps equally as impressive, 11 of Boise State’s 16 field goals in the second half had an assist.
“We just got each other open shot after open shot,” said Boise State coach Leon Rice. “They’re hard to do that against because they switch everything and it’s a confusing defense sometimes. But we just made the right plays and moved the ball.”
That momentum, however, started building in the first half as the Broncos went into halftime on a 16-0 run. Air Force matched the Broncos bucket for bucket through the first 13 minutes of the game, with Ethan Taylor hitting a 3-pointer for Air Force with 6:54 left in the first half, putting the Falcons ahead 27-25.
But that was the last time Air Force would have the lead, or really even be in the game.
After a couple of minutes of both teams trading scoreless possessions, Degenhart hit a jumper with 4:36 left in the first half, sparking the run, on which he had 10 points himself. An O’Mar Stanley putback at the buzzer to give Boise State a 41-27 lead at halftime.
“We just started to finally string together some stops,” said Degenhart. “In those first 13 minutes, we couldn’t string together more than two stops in a row. We finally started stringing some together and we finally got out in transition and got some easy buckets and that was really the difference in the game.”
There was no slowing down the Broncos after that. If you extend the run out until there was seven minutes left in the game — effectively a full 20 minutes — Boise State was able to extend its run to 53-12.
The Broncos finished the game with 1.6 points per possession, which according to college basketball analytical site barttorvik.com is the highest total by any NCAA Division I team in a conference game over the past six seasons.
“That’s remarkable, it looked right, but I didn’t know it was that good,” Rice said about the Broncos’ points per possession. “But it was how they played. They all made the right plays, unselfish plays. We got a special team. That showed up and that’s what people are starting to see.”
Stanley added 14 points for the Broncos, while Max Rice had 12 and Roddie Anderson finished with 10. Cam Martin came off the bench to lead the Broncos with six rebounds and seven assists.
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