On Friday night, the two hottest teams in the Mountain West face off at ExtraMile Arena. Boise State played the Rams in Fort Collins on January 22 in a 72-75 defeat that Leon Rice called “rock bottom” in a postgame interview with BNN. Leon’s squad was 13-7 and an NCAA Tournament at-large bid seemed a lifetime away. Since then, the Broncos are 9-1 and find themselves in the field of 68 in 62% of brackets updated Wednesday morning per the BracketMatrix. Meanwhile, Colorado State were slow starters going 6-5 in non-conference play but have found their form and are now a win away from finishing second in the Mountain West. The Rams have won 6 in a row and are 11-2 in their last 13. For Boise State, the stakes are simple: A win locks up the 2-seed in the Mountain West and puts the Broncos in favorable position to nab their 4th consecutive NCAA At-Large bid. A loss will (likely) drop Boise State to the 5-seed, needing to win three games in three days to get back to the Dance. For CSU, their at-large hopes aren’t dead yet and a win keeps their hopes for a third tournament bid in four seasons. It’s not exaggerative to say this is the most important Boise State game at ExtraMile since winning the Mountain West against Nevada in 2022.
The matchup in January was as bad as it got for Boise State. The Broncos dropped to 5-4 in conference play and forced the staff to shorten the rotation and find players who would play with greater intensity, especially defensively. I did a film review for BNN and there are easy fixes that Bronco Nation can feel optimistic about. There were some statistical anomalies in that game: Colorado State shot 11/24 for 3, which likely won’t be repeated. The Broncos also had just 5 offensive rebounds, despite being the best offensive rebounding team in the conference. Based on pure variance alone, you would expect the Broncos to pick up some extra points with better rebounding and perimeter defense. Also fixable, are the mental errors that plagued Boise State in that first matchup. I’ve never seen a Leon Rice coached team make as many mistakes in rotations as the Broncos did in that first matchups. Miscommunications on screens, no one tagging cutters and generally bad effort defensively led to half a dozen wide open buckets for the Rams. That game saw the insertion of RJ Keene into a regular rotation spot and the defensive intensity has picked up accordingly (more on that later). If Boise State plays with the defensive intensity we’ve seen the past 5 weeks, they have a great chance.
There was one issue from the first game the Broncos can’t easily fix: They had no answers for Nique Clifford. Clifford is a future NBA draft pick and the best player in the league (yes, better than Donovan Dent in my opinion) and showed off his versatility in that first game. Clifford finished with 20 points, 7 rebounds, 7 assists and no turnovers. Throughout the second half, Niko Medved consistently went to isolations and pick and rolls with Clifford to find easy buckets at the rim or wide-open looks from 3. Andrew Meadow was the primary defender on Clifford and didn’t do much to make him uncomfortable. Meadow struggled navigating screens, which is what led to the open look at the end of regulation, and when Boise State switched screening actions it often led to Alvaro Cardenas getting isolated on Clifford. The solution Leon Rice didn’t exercise? RJ Keene.
Let’s talk about RJ Keene. He’s been a good player who brings rebounding, defensive intensity and does all the things a coach loves. Much maligned by fans for his lack of aggressiveness to shoot, his impact has been tough to quantify for most fans. So, let’s quantify his impact! Evan Miyakawa is one of the leading minds in college basketball analytics and dropped some exceptional RJ Keene nuggets on Tuesday. Miyakawa starts his thread by posing a question, “Ever wanted to know who the best player in CBB is who doesn’t score? It’s Boise State’s RJ Keene.” And finishes said tweet by saying, “Keene has the best BPR (Miyakawa’s individual efficiency rating) of any player to average under 1.5 PPG, ever.”
You read that right.
Ever.
Keene isn’t a scorer—we know this, but he’s the most impactful non-scorer in Miyakawa’s database. Keene mentioned that Nevada’s bench was chirping him by calling him Draymond Green. It’s an apt-comparison, Draymond Green is a four time champion, defensive player of the year and future Hall of Famer, despite averaging 8.7 points per game in his career. Draymond Green also once had a triple double without points. Double digit rebounds, assists and steals. Seems like something Keene could do.
RJ Keene is so valuable because he does everything well except score. He’s a fantastic connective piece and one of the team’s best passers in transition. He’s the team’s best rebounder, rivaled only by O’Mar Stanley, and his defensive presence can’t be understated. Per Evan Miya, he’s the 2nd best individual defender in the Mountain West. He brings consistent energy that seems infectious to the players around him. He’s one of Boise State’s best team defenders and creates chaos for offenses, he’s the only Boise State defender with steals on 1.7% of possessions and blocks on 1.7% of possessions (that’s really good). Keene’s not an elite point of attack defender, but he makes up for a lack of elite foot speed for unrelenting effort. He’s the kind of player Boise State fans should love. Blue collar, unselfish and hard-nosed… Literally, he broke his nose earlier in the season. The qualitative descriptors are fine, but the numbers back it up too. Per Miyakawa, Keene is Boise State’s most valuable player in terms of Net On-Off. That is the greatest gap between when a player is on the floor versus off the floor. The Broncos are 18.6 points per 100 possessions better when Keene is on the floor versus when he’s off. The next best is Javan Buchanan’s 11.0. Is RJ Keene’s this team’s best player? Of course not. Tyson Degenhart does things that RJ Keene can’t do and that no one else on this team can do. However, RJ Keene plays his role better than anyone on this team does. He makes everyone better defensively and does the little things on offense that helps Boise State’s best scorers keep the ball in their hands.
RJ Keene is awesome, and probably underappreciated by fans and media. RJ Keene played just 11 minutes in Boise State’s first matchup with Colorado State, and didn’t spend much time guarding Nique Clifford. Look for Keene to get significantly more minutes and a considerably larger role defensively on Friday.
I think Boise State has a lot to fix that can lead to a win Friday. Most of which is fixable. The best news? Boise State led 72-70 with a minute left against Colorado State and only lost by 3. If the Broncos clean up one issue, they probably win that game. If they clean up two or three, they win in a blowout. In their last two games at the X, Boise State had decisive wins over the top-2 teams in the Mountain West and the path to do it again on Friday is there.
Broncos At-Large update
As the season has progressed there has been plenty of discussion about Boise State’s at-large hopes, and whether or not they still have a chance. At the end of each article, I’ll provide a brief update on where various metrics and bracket experts have the Broncos’ at-large chances:
At the start of Mountain West play I said that 16-4 would make the Broncos a lock for an at-large, and 15-5 would put you in a good spot going into Selection Sunday. When the Broncos lost that game to Rams I finished the article by saying that as catastrophic as things felt, the Broncos weren’t dead yet. They’re 14-5 now and have a chance to go 15-5 and nab an at-large bid, just as we all expected.
Boise State is firmly on the bubble, most often one of the last four in or first four out. A win on Saturday would make the Broncos 8-6 in Q1/2 games and more than likely in the field barring a major snub or a catastrophic loss in Las Vegas. Conversely, a loss puts Boise State’s at-large hopes on life support once again, and would likely require the Broncos to win the MW Tournament to grab a bid.
Nathan Carroll is a part-time contributor for Bronco Nation News and host of the TBA Basketball Podcast. Nathan works for Pro Football Focus as part of their data collection team, specializing in charting player data at the FBS level. Previously, he graduated from Boise State’s Honors College with a degree in Quantitative Economics and worked 5 years in Boise State’s athletic department. Follow him on X at Nathan_26_
