Around the Mountain: Boise feeling the blues after rough week

What's going on in Boise?

A preseason Mountain West title contender, the Boise State Broncos kicked the season off with a home loss to a Division II school.

Little did we know that wouldn't even be the worst of the ExtraMile Arena blues for the team.

Last week, the Broncos — the same ones who handed the UNM Lobos their only league loss to date in an ugly 62-53 game on Dec. 30 — suffered the worst and third-worst home losses in the Leon Rice era.

First, it was an eye-opening 75-58 midweek loss to league newcomer Grand Canyon. After the game Rice, who earlier this season became the winningest coach in league history (in conference games), said the home environment was like a "neutral court" game with no atmosphere and blasted both of his point guards for not seeming to know how to get their teammates the ball.

The loss was the third-worst margin of defeat at home in the Rice era.

The next day, after a headline appeared on BroncoNationNews.com saying something to the effect that Rice "blasts" fans after the loss, with video showing his postgame comments, Rice went on a lengthy rant criticizing reporter B.J. Rains for the "click bait" headline and saying it journalism "malpractice" to say he blasted fans.

Mind you, Rice did blast fans. No, not the ones who showed up to the GCU game, but the ones who didn't, essentially making it the worst home game he could remember in that arena.

For the next game, Saturday against Utah State, the school offered a promotion that any student with an ID could get in free. The game was held during the students' winter break.

Utah State students started jumping on board, forcing Boise State administrators to change the offer to apply only to students in Idaho.

Utah State coaches and boosters stepped up and paid for a few hundred USU students from "The Hurd" to get in, and their chants in ExtraMile Arena were louder than the home crowd in what would end up being the worst home loss in the Rice era — a 93-68 Boise State loss to the Aggies.

There's a lot to deconstruct here. But for now, the big thing is Boise State is sitting at 1-4 in league play in a conference it felt it had a chance to win this season.

Blowout trend continues

This ATM column last week pointed out the Mountain West led the nation in "blowouts" according the KenPom.com — wins of 20 ore more points.

That was when the count was five blowouts in 17 league games played (29.4%).

Last week, it stretched its lead even more over the country's other 30 Division I conferences with four more blowouts. Now, 31.0% of league games (9-of-29) have been decided by 20 or more points.

No other league is at 30%. In fact, 26 conferences aren't even at 20%.

MW Players of the Week

The Mountain West league office on Monday announced its Player and Freshman of the Week award winners.

MW Player of the Week: Elijah Price, Nevada — The sophomore forward averaged a double-double — 18.5 points and 11.5 rebounds — while shooting 66.7% (10-of-15) in a split week for the Wolf Pack, losing at home to San Diego State then beating Wyoming at home.

MW Freshman of the Week: Jake Hall, Nevada — The Lobos leading scorer finally gets his first league honor. Hall averaged 21.0 points and 4.5 rebounds per game while shooting 54.2 percent (13-of-24) from the field and hitting eight 3-pointers in a week with road wins at Colorado State and at Air Force.

Weekly Nique

For the first time, the weekly Nique — an award Colorado State fan and podcaster Steve Ivy and I started handing out to honor players either snubbed by the league office for a player award or just to shout out a player or two who also had great weeks — has an actual beef with the league's choice.

Ivy and I both agreed Price had a good week, but not as good as M.J. Collins from Utah State. (We agreed that Hall was top freshman, though).

Weekly Nique POW: Collins, Utah State — The transfer from Virginia Tech averaged 22.5 points in blowout road wins for the league's top team at Air Force and at Boise State.

The league has a history of giving the weekly award to a player whose team won both games if there's any debate at all. And this week, we're not sure there was even much debate, but if there was, Utah State's dominance on the road should have made Collins the winner.

Weekly Nique FOW: DeShawn Gory, Fresno State — The 6-foot-6 forward had a 16-point, 13-rebound game in a road win at San Jose State followed by a 16-point, 14-rebound game in a road loss at San Diego State.

UNM's Tomislav Buljan also had 14 rebounds earlier Saturday at Air Force — the most rebounds in a Mountain West game this season.

Others: Wyoming's Nasir Meyer (27-points in loss at Nevada) and UNM's Uriah Tenette (walking highlight reel) are regulars in the weekly freshman consideration.

Poll position

Utah State (14-1, 5-0 MW) cracked the Associated Press Top 25 for the first time this season on Monday, checking in at No. 23.

No other Mountain West team received a vote.

The Aggies received 161 points and appeared on 44 of the 61 ballots this week, with a high vote from Victor Flores of the Billings (Montana) Gazette.

RIP, Terry Wymer

Longtime college basketball official and coordinator of officials Terry Wymer was honored by "TW" pins worn by many coaches around the league over the weekend as well as a patch by game officials.

There was also a moment of silence held before Saturday's UNM at Air Force game at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

My five

There are the five Mountain West games I'm most looking forward to this week, listed in order of when they're played:

NOTE: This might be the best week of the conference season so far. There are only 12 games and I wanted to list eight of them, but they couldn't all make the cut (sorry 0-5 Air Force at 0-5 San Jose State).

• San Diego State at Wyoming: Wednesday, 6 p.m. MT (CBS Sports Network) — One of the reasons the Aztecs have long complained about the Mountain West was having to play in places like Laramie. Sundance Wicks and the Cowboys host the Aztecs at 7,220 feet for the final time as SDSU has no plans of scheduling future nonconference games at elevation when it joins the Pac 12 next season.
• Nevada at No. 23 Utah State: Wednesday, 8 p.m. MT (CBS Sports Network) — The Aggies are ranked for the first time, riding high as national attention starts to roll in despite a light résumé (other than all the winning, of course). Steve Alford and the Wolf Pack want to get back into the title hunt.
• Colorado State at Boise State: Friday, 8:30 p.m. MT (FS1) — These two teams who both thought they'd be competing for top of the league honors are sitting at a combined 3-7. Boise State can't possibly lose at home again, can it?
• No. 23 Utah State at Grand Canyon: Saturday 12:30 p.m. MT (FS1) — Grand Canyon wants to show that its student section, "The Havoc," is the best in the Mountain West, not "The Hurd" from Utah State. With this game being nationally televised, they'll want to make the environment with a ranked team coming to town an epic one. Oh yeah, and it's two really good teams.
• New Mexico at San Diego State: Saturday, 6 p.m. MT (CBS Sports Network) — Eric Olen and crew get to go back to San Diego and play that team that got all the attention for years. These are two Mountain West title contenders who have a long history in the Mountain West, no matter who the coaches and players are.

Reach Geoff Grammer at ggrammer@abqjournal.com or follow him on Twitter (X) @GeoffGrammer.