BOISE – That early-season slump seems like a thing of the past for Chibuzo Agbo.
And look out. He appears to be as good as advertised.
Agbo, a transfer from Texas Tech, had 20 points – including 18 in the first half – to lead Boise State to a 87-69 win over Utah Valley on Saturday afternoon.
It’s the second time in the past three games that Agbo has surpassed 20 points after he went scoreless in Boise State debut and had just 11 total points in his first three games.
“It felt really good, especially in ExtraMile Arena,” Agbo said. “I feel like I really haven’t played well up until today offensively, so it felt really good to have that. … I knew it was going to come. It’s all part of the process. I came in today ready to play.”
Agbo made 7 of 11 shots from the field, including 4 of 6 from 3-point range, and added four rebounds while only playing 22 minutes due to foul trouble.
“We see it every day in practice so we were just waiting for the fans to see it,” said Naje Smith. “Some days it’s like ‘man, how do you stop this guy?’ He’s a great player.”
All five starters reached double figures for the Broncos, including Agbo, Tyson Degenhart (19 points), Naje Smith (17), Marcus Shaver Jr. (15) and Max Rice (12).
The Broncos shot 50.8 percent from the floor (33 of 65) en route to a season-high 87 points.
“I’m seeing big jumps in what we’re doing,” Boise State coach Leon Rice said. “We scored 87 points tonight and I don’t think we could have done that three weeks ago or two weeks ago. The biggest jump and why we’re becoming a little more efficient offensively is we’re getting each other shots.
“We’re starting to make each other better and really understand our roles with that first group. I thought we had some growth in our bench tonight also. You’re seeing guys getting better and better right in front of our eyes.”
One contributor off the bench was freshman Sadraque NgaNga, who only scored two points but had five rebounds – including two offensive – and was solid in 14 minutes.
“I thought Sadraque came off the bench and I told him you rebound, you play and he held me to me to that tonight,” Rice said. “Those were big rebounds for us and he took care of the ball and made a hustle play. You’re seeing his growth. And he’s not alone. All those guys are growing.”
It’s the third win in a row for the Broncos, who were coming off a pair of wins against Loyola-Chicago and Colorado to finish up the Myrtle Beach Invitational. Boise State has improved 30 spots air KenPom since a 1-2 start and sit at a season-high No. 67 in the metric-based computer rankings.
“I definitely feel like we’re a dangerous team that people kind of overlooked,” and I definitely feel like we can get it going. We have so many weapons and we kind of knew that our biggest challenge would just be coming together. I didn’t realize we’d be coming together this fast, but something special is coming.”
