More March misery: Boise State basketball season dies in tournament upset loss

BOISE (Idaho Statesman) — The Mountain West Tournament was due for an upset Wednesday night, and Boise State turned out to be the sacrificial Bronco.

Boise State entered the conference tournament first-round game against San Jose State as 14-point favorites. The Broncos had beaten the Spartans by 31 and 15 in the regular season, and entered the tournament on a five-game winning streak.

But this is March, and Leon Rice’s teams have a checkered history in Las Vegas for the Mountain West tourney. San Jose State flipped the script, outhustling a discombobulated Boise State squad and bringing the season crashing down around its ears.

The No. 11-seeded Spartans (9-23), who won just three conference games all year, defeated No. 6 seed Boise State 84-74 to move on to Thursday’s quarterfinal matchup against No. 3 New Mexico.

The Broncos were the only team to be upset in Wednesday’s first-round matchups, with the three other higher-seeded teams winning. Boise State has not made it past the quarterfinals five times since 2017, while also breaking through to win the event once and make the finals last season.

It’s just the second time in 23 attempts that the Spartans have defeated the Broncos, and the first since an overtime victory in February 2023.

“They did a great job. They just outfought us,” Rice curtly said to open his postgame press conference.

What’s next for the Broncos (20-12) is anyone’s guess. Winning the Mountain West tourney was the only path to the NCAA Tournament. Rice said neither he nor Boise State’s administration has decided whether the school might compete in one of the many other postseason events.

Last season, the Broncos competed in the College Basketball Crown, a Las Vegas-based tournament that awards NIL money to its competitors. The Crown was a 16-team event last season but there will be only eight teams this time around.

The NIT will have its usual 32-team field, although whether BSU would garner an invitation to that is up in the air.

Wednesday night’s game at the Thomas & Mack Center started much like the first two games with San Jose State this season, with a spirited Spartans starting five keeping pace with the Broncos.

SJSU has relied heavily on its starting five all season due to the injury bug, which has left their bench as shallow as two deep late in recent games. Despite competitive starts, the Spartans’ lack of depth has allowed teams to pull away later in games, including in both games against the Broncos.

But that didn’t transpire this time around. The Spartans’ starting five still carried the bulk of the load — all five played at least 25 minutes and scored in double digits — but they never faded away.

From the first whistle, San Jose State dictated a fast-paced game that kept the Broncos out of rhythm, ultimately leading to a 7-0 Spartan run that gave San Jose State a 23-19 lead after 10 minutes.

The Broncos turned the ball over five times in the opening minutes and were only winning the rebounding battle eight to six.

“They were the aggressor,” Boise State assistant coach Mike Burns told KBOI after the game. “Even though we ended up with the winning edge on the glass early in the game, we’re looking at the stat sheet, and they’ve outrebounded us,”

Burns continued. “They’re getting to the rim on us. And they played basically six guys, and so their guys just were flying around.”

A big sign of trouble came in the final second of the first half, courtesy of a buzzer-beating 3-pointer from Spartans junior guard Colby Garland. The bucket gave San Jose State a 41-39 advantage heading into halftime, a valuable lead they weren’t able to manage in the first two games.

The Spartans then immediately struck with a bucket within the first 15 seconds of halftime, and then Garland went to work, scoring seven of the Spartans’ next 12 points as they stretched the lead out to 10. Garland scored a team-high 22 points and was beaten only by Boise State senior forward Javan Buchanan, who scored 28 points in potentially his final game.

“There’s a lot of emotions. We put a lot into it,” Buchanan said in the postgame press conference. “A lot of people trust me. … It’s just raw emotion right now.”

The Broncos would close the gap to as little as three points, 55-52, midway through the half, thanks to a 7-0 run between junior forward Drew Fielder and Buchanan. Fielder would end the night with 12 points, while junior forward Andrew Meadow was the only other Bronco to score in double digits with 17.

But the Spartans refused to run out of gas, forcing the Broncos into 12 total turnovers and a rough 22-for-58 (37.9%) shooting performance, including a 5-for-23 (21.7%) mark from beyond the arc.

The Broncos’ offensive woes allowed San Jose State to stretch its lead back out to double digits, 67-56, across the next five minutes. The Spartans wouldn’t let that lead go, allowing Boise State no closer than eight points.

“They handed us our hats. Their guards were dogs. Those guys were tough tonight, and we knew that,” Rice said. “… The thing that they’ve had all year is not enough depth to sustain those moments over a lot of games, and they sustained it tonight.”