In Boise State basketball program, a legendary name now appears twice

BOISE (Idaho Stateman) — Boise State basketball is doubling up on a Hall of Fame name in the program.

The team announced this week that redshirt junior point guard Ray Bergersen, son of former Boise State basketball great and current assistant coach Roberto Bergersen, signed to continue his college career with the Broncos.

Ray arrives after spending three years at Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa, where he played in 38 games after redshirting his freshman year.

Roberto played for Boise State from 1996-99 and led the Broncos to the ‘98-99 Big West regular-season championship as the conference’s player of the year. He was inducted into the school’s Athletics Hall of Fame in 2007.

“Growing up, he was kind of a celebrity in Idaho, people always noticing him,” Ray told the Idaho Statesman on Wednesday in an interview. “So, just seeing it up close, it’s going to be exciting.”

Roberto and Ray become the latest father-son duo in the program. Head coach Leon Rice had son Max on the team from 2018 until 2024, and son Kade during the 2023-24 season.

This also isn’t the first time Roberto has coached a son in college. He was an assistant coach at Eastern Washington in 2021-22 for the senior season of his eldest son, Rylan.

“I don’t know why I’ve been so fortunate, or why God’s blessed me so much to do this,” Roberto told the Statesman. “I had no intention of even getting into college coaching for a lot of years, and now I’ve been able to be around and spend time with my oldest son and my youngest son. I’m fortunate, I’m really grateful.”

Roberto Bergersen joined the Boise State staff in April 2022. Ray said he had no desire to try to join his father immediately at BSU, because it had been his dream to play college basketball with brother Ryzin, who was at NNU already.

“It was close to home, and I got to play with my brother as well,” Ray said. “After he graduated and left, I just didn’t see myself enjoying it without him, so I just entered the portal and wanted to find something else. And my dad brought up the opportunity of possibly walking on at Boise State.”

It’ll be the first time that Roberto has coached Ray since high school. His two other sons were more offensive-minded players, similar to their father, an excellent shooter who ended his Boise State career averaging 17.3 points per game. Ray describes himself as a “really strongly defensive-minded” player who enjoys getting the ball to his teammates and finding them in open spaces. He averaged two assists per game for Northwest Nazarene last season, ranking third on the team.

Roberto thinks Ray’s style is so different from the rest of the family because he had to stand out from his brothers and offer something different.

“He’s a throwback,” Roberto said. “I think these younger players today don’t even know what the definition of a point guard is, but Ray is the true definition of a point guard.”

With Roberto’s two older sons out of college and Ray now at Boise State, Roberto said he’s thankful to have finally settled back down in the city.

Following his college career, Roberto was drafted by the Atlanta Hawks in the 1999 NBA Draft, but spent most of his career in the NBA D-League with the Idaho Stampede. He also had stints playing in five European countries and coached prep basketball in Branson, Missouri, in the late 2010s.

“I’ve dragged my wife and my kids around all across the globe throughout my career,” Roberto said. “We came back, all three of my boys have experienced their whole stuff in different cultures and different places and different worlds. But to be here at home, where we all feel at home, man, there’s nothing like it.”