Century gets ‘bullied’ by Boise in lopsided loss

IDAHO FALLS — The Century Diamondbacks have been nothing if not inconsistent this season. One thing they have been consistent about, though, is scoring. Entering Thursday’s TitleOne Tip-Off Classic, the Diamondbacks had scored 60 or more points in every game.

But the Boise Brave, who boast one of the best defenses in 6A boys basketball, effectively slowed junior Justus Mangum and the Diamondbacks (3-3, 0-0), en route to a 63-45 victory.

REALTED | Re-Watch this game and all the other action from the TitleOne Tip-Off Classic here.

Boise (3-0, 0-0) beat his team in every facet, according to Century head coach Ryan Frost.

“Boise bullied us,” he said after the game. “They out-hustled us, they out-rebounded us. I would say, probably every stat you could have, they were better than us tonight.”

Things started balanced, with the Century’s big frontcourt of Xenphon Flesishmann and Luke Webb holding its own against the Boise bigs, and freeing up space on both ends of the floor. But as the fouls mounted, the Brave found more space — on the court and the scoreboard.

Boise led 14-13 at the end of one, then 29-19 at halftime. Century scraped together a slim advantage in the third, pulling to within eight, but the Braved stamped an exclamation point on their victory with a 19-9 fourth quarter.

The only Diamondback who found any offensive rhythm was Mangum, who asserted himself in the second half and earned his way to the free throw line numerous time. But he was inefficient there — visibly fatigued by the work it took to get there.

He finished the night with a game-high 20 points, to go with six rebounds and one blocked shot. His usual running mates, Flesishmann and Adrian Gonzalez, were equally affected by the Boise defense, combining for just 12 points and 12 rebounds.

Frost made his team aware of Boise’s defensive proficiency. He said the gameplan was to move the ball more and force the Brave defense to move as much, but his Diamondbacks did not do that.

“We didn’t do a very good job of moving the ball and making them go from being ball-pressure to help-side,” he said. “They were in our face, and we didn’t like it. We got bullied.”

Boise was led by senior Will Gebert, who scored 17 points, to go with eight rebounds.

With their win, the Brave move into the semifinals, where they will face Thursday night’s winner between Hillcrest and Vallivue.

Century falls into the consolation bracket, awaiting the loser of the Knights-Falcons matchup.

Frost, though frustrated by his team’s performance, said that the timing of the loss allows the Diamondbacks to make use of it. Bouncing back from their worst loss of the season — the first in which they were outscored by more than five points — is a matter of “pride” and a willingness to “learn from this.”

“It’s early in the year,” he said. “It’s a little different if you’re in the state tournament, end of the year, where you lose and your hopes are dashed. We’re early, so let’s have a learning lesson from this and not let it happen again.”