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Boise State knocks top-seeded Lobos out of Mountain West Tournament
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LAS VEGAS, Nev. — The team that needed it more got their wish.
Playing for their NCAA Tournament lives, the Boise State Broncos made winning play after winning play down the stretch — picking up a coveted Quad 1 win over Mountain West champion New Mexico, 72-69 on Friday night in the Thomas & Mack Arena.
“Well, a terrific battle,” UNM Lobo coach Richard Pitino said. “Certainly disappointed when you don’t win a championship, and disappointed when you have such a great crowd that felt like a home game, who traveled to Vegas and (we) squandered the opportunity. But a lot of that had to do with Boise making big plays.”
The teams exchanged haymaker after haymaker in the final four minutes, much to the delight of a pro-Lobo crowd.
In the end, the Broncos landed more, sending them to Saturday’s Mountain West title game against the winner of the late game between No. 2 Colorado State and third-seeded Utah State. The loss sends the Lobos back to Albuquerque, where they will await Sunday’s NCAA Selection Show to find out their fate for next week’s Big Dance.
Bronco senior forward Tyson Degenhart scored 22 points, Andrew Meadow added 16 and Emmanuel Ugbo scored 17 — more than 14 points above his season average — in a game that ends the Lobos’ five-game winning streak in the Mountain West Tournament, including last year’s championship run.
Boise State (24-9) takes two out of three games from the Lobos (26-7) this season.
UNM’s Donovan Dent followed one of his worst halves of the season with one of his best halves, scoring 18 oh his game-high 23 in the second half to go along with five assists.
He also scored 11 of UNM’s final 13 points, all in the final four minutes of play — two 3-pointers, a tip-dunk off a Filip Borovicanin missed layup and three of four free throws in the final 17 seconds, all setting up what appeared to be a storybook ending for the Mountain West’s Player of the Year.
Instead, his step-left 3-point attempt with four seconds left — altered to try and avoid the outstretched hand of Boise State’s R.J. Keene — sailed past the basket, ending the Lobos’ rally.
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The game flipped with 9:32 remaining, right after a Mustapha Amzil basket put the Lobos up 53-49.
The Broncos scored the next 10 points — eight of those points were scored by Ugbo — to go up 59-53.
Ugbo’s previous career scoring high was 13 points against non-Division I team Corban College.
“It doesn’t surprise any of us, because we’ve seen a lot of our guys at their best,” Boise State coach Leon Rice said.
Boise State pushed its lead to 61-56 with 4:17 left in the game on an O’Mar Stanley basket.
Dent hit a 3-pointer with 4 minutes left, answered by a pair of Degenhart 3s for a 63-59 Boise State lead.
Another Dent 3-pointer with 3:12 left cut the lead to one and UNM forced a Degenhart miss at the other end, but Stanley grabbed the offensive board and his putback put the Broncos up 65-62.
UNM retook the lead on Dent’s dunk with 1:04 left, 66-65, and the Lobo-heavy crowd was roaring as load as it had all game.
On Boise State’s ensuing possession, the Lobos thought they came up with a steal, instead a scramble for the ball ended up in Meadow’s hand, leading to him sinking a 3-pointer with 48 seconds left after having started the game 1-for-8 from beyond the arc. Twenty-four seconds later, on a baseline out-of-bounds play, Keene’s baseball pass down court to a sprinting Meadow led to a breakaway dunk and a 70-66 lead and what would prove to be the game-winner.
Nelly Junior Joseph ended with 10 points and Amzil added 10 for the Lobos.
Boise State’s bench outscored UNM’s 20-4. Lobo sixth man C.J. Noland was limited to 8 minutes, 18 seconds with a hamstring injury. All four Lobo bench points came on two dunks in the first half from Atiki Ally Atiki.
BSU outrebounded UNM 38-31 and got 18 second-chance points to just nine for the Lobos.
NOTES: Degenhart entered the game with 1,927 points, 17 shy of tying the Boise State all-time scoring record. His 18th point — a bucket with 10:01 left in the game to cut UNM’s lead to 51-49 — gave him sole possession of that record. He passed Tanoka Beard, who scored 1,944 points from 1989-93.
Dent’s 23 points and five assists extends his Mountain West record streak to six of games with at least 20 points and five assists. He set the record on Thursday in UNM’s win over San Jose State in the quarterfinals.
With UNM leading 34-28 at halftime, they extended their streak to 11 consecutive halves of outscoring their opponent. Boise State outscored UNM 44-35 in the second half.
Box score: Boise State 72, New Mexico 69
