SAN JOSE – What would have been a devastating, potentially season-killing loss may end up being one of Boise State’s best and most important wins.
The Broncos, down virtually the entire game and trailing by nine points midway through the second half, stormed back with an impressive final flurry to beat San Jose State, 78-69, on Friday night at the Provident Credit Union Events Center in San Jose.
O’Mar Stanley had 30 points and 11 rebounds for Boise State, which ended the game on a 30-12 run over the final 10 minutes after an Alvaro Cardenas 3-pointer put the Spartans up 57-48 with 10:36 to go.
The Broncos (10-4, 1-0 MW) picked up a win in their Mountain West road opener for the first time since 2019 and started out 1-0 in league play ahead of a brutal stretch that starts Tuesday night at ExtraMile Arena against No. 13 Colorado State.
Boise State ended up covering the Vegas point spread and won by more than the 5-point projection at KenPom despite trailing for 30:53 of the game – including a 63-57 deficit with 6:34 to go.
“People will look at the score tomorrow and back in the old days they’d pick up the paper in the morning and say ‘well that looked easy, that must have been easy’,” Boise State coach Leon Rice told Bronco Nation News. “But no. When you saw it in person, there was a lot going against us.”
Included in that was San Jose State guard MJ Amey Jr., who had 25 points in the first half to help the Spartans build a 40-33 lead at the break.
“One of the hottest guys we’ve seen,” Rice said. “That guy was on fire.”
But the Broncos held him to just five points in the second half – he finished with 30 on 11 of 18 shooting – and limited San Jose State to 31 percent shooting in the second half, including just 1 of 13 from 3-point range, to help fuel the comeback.
Boise State’s defense held San Jose State without a field goal in the final 5:16 as the Broncos used a 15-2 run to turn a 63-57 deficit into a 72-65 lead with 2:26 to go.
The Broncos also out-rebounded the Spartans 43-23 after getting beat by 21 on the glass in an overtime loss in San Jose late last season.
“It was huge,” Stanley told BNN. “I remember hearing it was flipped last year. Last year they out-rebounded us by 20 and we wanted to come in here and prove a point.”
As for the second-half turnaround, Stanley said, “We grew some kahonas during halftime. Somebody had to step up and guard Amey and we did that. We held him to five in the second half. We out-toughed them in the second half and we did our job.”
Tyson Degenhart had 21 points for the Broncos including two huge 3-pointers down the stretch, including one which pulled Boise State within one at 65-64 with 4:51 to play.
“It felt good to knock those down,” Degenhart said. “I know my percentage isn’t what it is but I trust myself and trust the work I’ve put in that those shots are going to fall.
“We just knew we had to find a way. We had to stick together and string together some stops and get out in transition and everything was going to solve itself.”
Chibuzo Agbo had 15 points and Max Rice added 12 for the Broncos, who host Colorado State at 7 p.m. Tuesday night.
“It feels a lot better than going home 0-1,” Degenhart said. “It was a much-needed win for us to get off on the right foot in conference play. We know how it is going 0-1in that first game, especially last year, so it feels good to start it out the right way.”
Where did Stanley come from?!?! What a beast. We got ZERO points off the bench last night. Without Stanley getting to 30 we probably don’t win this game. We are gonna need more production off the bench. We can’t ask him to do that every night.