The Boise State men’s basketball team finds itself right where it wants to be with six games left.
Win out, and the Broncos can do no worse than share the Mountain West regular season title. A trip back to the NCAA Tournament would be locked up as well.
Sure it’s easier said than done given the Broncos remaining schedule but they’ve put themselves in position to have a chance to again achieve all their goals – and that’s all they could ask for at this point.
But that means no ‘bad losses’ down the stretch. And despite five of the six remaining games counting as Quad 1 or Quad 2, Boise State has a number of games outsiders and non-followers of the Mountain West will expect them to win. If they don’t, the impact could be big.
Take Wednesday’s game at Colorado State as an example. The Rams are 11-14 overall and sit in 10th place in the league standings at 3-9. But they play much better at home and have one of the top guards in the league in Isaiah Stevens.
Throw in their net ranking of 119 and the KenPom prediction of just a 4-point win, and Wednesday’s game will be anything but a walk in the park – even if most would consider it a bad loss should the Broncos stumble.
“They are a good team,” Boise State forward Tyson Degenhart said. “Their record may not show it but they have good players and they play well at home so we have to be dialed in for them.
“We know how important each game is with the resume. We’re on the bubble so a loss would be pretty detrimental so we have to take it one game at a time and put all our focus on Colorado State.”
The Broncos have similar no-win, all-to-lose games coming up against UNLV at home on Sunday and at San Jose State next Saturday. The Broncos won’t get a ton of praise or boost for winning, but would be crushed in the bracket projections for losing.
Sure both Colorado State and San Jose State will be, at least for now, nice Quad 2 games, but any late-season loss can be crushing – especially against teams in the middle or bottom of the standings.
Style points basically are out the window at this point. It’s all about winning. Survive and advance. A bad-looking win would still be better than impressive loss any day of the week.
And that means doing what helped the Broncos win the Mountain West a year ago – focusing on winning one game at a time, and not on the bigger picture or impact of a win or loss.
“We did the best job of any team I’ve had of compartmentalizing what we had to do and what our job was,” Boise State coach Leon Rice said of last year’a team. “We referred to it as staying in the moment.
“If you look at the daunting task in front of us, on our schedule there’s none where you go ‘oh that should be easy, we can play right through that.’ That doesn’t exist, so that’s the first thing you can take away from last year’s team, how we did such a good job of that. And that’s what this game is going to take, the complete focus on what we have to do.”
Various NCAA Tournament projections have the Broncos anywhere from a 9 seed to an 11 seed. BracketMatrix.com, which averages more than 100 bracket projections, has the Broncos as the final No. 10 seed heading into Tuesday’s games.
The Broncos appear to be safely in the field at this point, but a bad loss here or there could quickly change things. The goal is to not only get in, but to avoid the ‘play-in game’ in Dayton and to improve the seed as much as possible. Also important: The better seed you get, the better draw you get in terms of opponents.Boise State’s situation looks pretty good at this point. But it could change quickly – and that’s what is scary about a game like Wednesday at Colorado State.
The Rams appear to be much better and more dangerous than their record shows. The projected final score at KenPom.com of just 71-67 proves it.
“They are a terrific team and they’ve shown it,” Rice said. “Basketball is a funny thing. It’s such a fine line. Their record could be 20-9. They’ve stacked up close game after close game but they’ve shown the ceiling of where they can be. They beat Saint Mary’s (No. 7 at KenPom) at Saint Mary’s. They are a really good team.
“Our guys know. You don’t want to become immune to it just because we say it every game, but it’s real Anybody could beat anybody. It’s true and we’ve seen it up close. You have to be ready to somehow play your best or close to your best to be able to go on the road and get this win.”
Tip off is scheduled for 8 p.m. Wednesday at Moby Arena in Fort Collins. The game will air nationally on FOX Sports 1.
Bronco Nation News will be the only local media outlet in Fort Collins covering the game. Our live Lithia Ford of Boise Pregame Show starts around 7 p.m. MT and streams on the BNN YouTube, Facebook and Twitter accounts. Our live postgame show starts about 10 minutes after the game ends.
