With Florida diving on the floor to ice a 65-63 win over Houston in the National Championship, the 2024-25 college basketball season has officially ended. And what a year it was. For Boise State the season ending on Saturday in the College Basketball Crown semifinals to Nebraska, 79-69, -losing a roller coaster season for the Broncos. Let’s take a look back at the year that was for Boise State men’s basketball.
Recap
Boise State finished the year 26-11, the second-most wins in school history, and finished the year with an invite to the CBC in Las Vegas after being the fourth team out for the NCAA Tournament’s selection committee. This year was Leon Rice’s 15th season in charge of the program. Despite the lofty win total, some fans would consider the season a disappointment given preseason expectation. For the first time in program history, the Broncos were the preseason pick to win the Mountain West, but finished 14-6 in conference play and fifth in the conference standings. Regardless of the underwhelming regular season, the Broncos fought their way to the Mountain West tournament finals after wins against San Diego State and regular season champion, New Mexico. Boise State’s magic came up short in the championship game against Colorado State, losing to the Rams 69-56 and finishing 0-3 on the year against them.
The season was defined by its highs and lows and inconsistency. The Broncos started with a dominating win against a quality Oakland side, and then lost three days later to San Francisco in a game they were favored in, only to beat the ACC runner-up, Clemson, by double digits a week later. On any given night the Broncos could look like a top-20 team in the nation, or a team so flawed you wonder if they would even get to 20 wins. Likewise, on any given night you couldn’t guess who would be on the floor for the Broncos. Eleven different players started a game this season, combining for 10 different starting lineup combinations. The unreliability on the floor led to a 13-7 start that ultimately doomed the Broncos’ at-large hopes. After a “rock bottom” loss to Colorado State in Fort Collins, Chris Lockett and Dylan Anderson were pulled from the regular rotation, and Boise State finished the regular season 9-2. It was an encouraging finish, but this team still came up short of their goal of winning the program’s first NCAA tournament game, and even at their best had back-breaking flaws that ended their season.
What went well
The all-conference duo of Tyson Degenhart and Alvaro Cardenas was one of the conference’s best one-two punches, if not the best. Degenhart averaged 18.3 points and 6.1 rebounds per game, and Cardenas finished with 11.5 points and a Mountain West leading 6.9 assists per game. The two capped off historic years for the program, Degenhart broke Tanonka Beard’s career scoring record, finishing with 2,037 points. Meanwhile, Cardenas set the Mountain West single season record for assists in conference play (148) and the program record for assists in a season with 256, smashing the previous record of 165 set by La’Shard Anderson in 2010-11. The two were fantastic all season, and the only two Broncos to start every game for Leon Rice. Any conversation of praise for this season, needs to begin with those two in particular.
Elsewhere on Boise State’s roster, there were bigtime contributions from young players for this program to build on going forward. Sophomore Andrew Meadow started 35 games for the Broncos, and was Boise State’s best shooter throughout the season. Highlighted by a 24-point outburst in a key win in Reno over Nevada, Meadow flashed all-conference scoring potential with exceptional ability to finish at the rim off closeouts and cuts. He finished the year as one of the conference’s most efficient scorers (6th in eFG%) and mistake-free players (2nd lowest in turnover rate). The Broncos received significant contributions from true freshman Julian Bowie and Peanut Carmichael. Bowie shot 34.8% from three on the season and showed an ability to be a high volume shooter off the bench. Meanwhile, Carmichael started the year as a redshirt on the practice squad, but played so well in practice that Leon decided to pull his redshirt halfway through the season, ultimately starting the last 12 games of the season. In his first career start, against future conference champion New Mexico, Carmichael set a career-high 21 points where he showcased ability to knockdown tough shots, get to the rim and create his own shot. Despite the discouraging finish, the future is bright for the Broncos backcourt.
More broadly speaking, this year’s team was one of the nation’s best rebounding teams, finishing 3rd in DReb% and 89th in OReb% – If there’s one thing you can set your clock to, it’s Leon Rice teams are going to rebound the basketball. The Broncos were efficient around the rim shooting 56.4% inside the arc (25th in the nation) and one of the best free throw shooting teams in the country at 78.2% (19th in the nation). I thought Leon did an excellent job adapting and adjusting trying to figure out the best version of this roster, and for the most part the team was well-coached. This team also showed great resolve and bounced back from setbacks continually. Not to be cliché, but it showed the type of fight and blue-collar work ethic Bronco Nation would be proud of.
What went wrong
I’ll start this portion by saying: This was a good basketball team. They won 26 games, finished Top-50 in KenPom, and had a chance to play in the NCAA Tournament. It also is fair to say this team underperformed their preseason expectations, and some glaring flaws revealed themselves as the season went on.
Let’s start with the defensive end of the floor. I thought for the most part, Mike Burns and the defense made chicken salad out of chicken… You know the rest of the saying… The Broncos’ defense was solid despite lacking any clear defensive stoppers. The team was full of good team context defenders, but when opponents opted to run isolation, Boise State didn’t have a clear option to throw out there and guard 1-on-1. The result? 36 points for Nique Clifford on senior night, 24 points for Clifford in the Mountain West championship, 24 points for Nick Boyd in a must win game at San Diego State. Continually, Boise State struggled with point of attack defense on shotmaking guards and wings. Part of what makes the addition of Dylan Andrews in the portal so significant is because he’s a proven high-level defender.
To compound the issues defensively, when opponents got downhill on Boise State’s perimeter defense, there was little rim protection to speak of. Degenhart played the five over one-third of the time, in which his 0.9% block rate underscores he is certainly not a rim protector. Stanley and Ugbo fared better, but both players stand just 6-foot-8 and don’t truly offer high level rim protection. Stanley had a block rate of 4.4% (0.7 blocks per game) and Ugbo 4.0% (0.4 blocks per game), neither finishing top-250 nationally. The result? Boise State had blocks on just 7.3% of possessions, 285th in college basketball. It’s why I give so much credit to Burns for putting together a capable defense despite the personnel to do so. The Broncos finished 70th in KenPom defense without any clear point of attack defenders, and without high level rim protectors, and often no rim protection at all.
The bigger issue with Boise State’s lack of rim protection is that you usually sacrifice rim protection for offense, typically in the form of shooting. Boise State was a bad shooting team this year. The Broncos finished the year 31.7% from beyond the arc, 283rd in the nation. Many of the losses this season were defined by poor shooting from deep. 8/27 in the Mountain West Championship game, 7/29 in the senior night loss, 4/17 in the Boston College loss in the Cayman Islands. Plenty more to speak of, but Boise State’s shooting issues limited what this offense could have been.
The cold shooting was team-wide. The Broncos didn’t have anyone shoot better than 35% from deep. Eight different Broncos took 20+ threes and shot below D1 average (33.8%). There was some regression, Cardenas was a career 35.3% shooter who shot 31.5% this season, but for the most part this team just had too many unproven shooters taking threes. Meadow was the team’s best shooter at just 35%. You love to have a 35% three-point shooter, you don’t want that to be your best shooter. It will be a point of emphasis in the offseason for Leon Rice and this staff. Some of the returning players either need to improve as shooters, or they’ll lose playing time. I would expect this staff decides to bring in a proven knockdown shooter to give a boost to a lineup that was desperately lacking this season.
Lastly, and this should surprise no one who watched this team, Boise State struggled with finding their five best players. Outside of Cardenas and Degenhart, the roster was way too inconsistent game-to-game. A player would have a breakout performance… and proceed to lay eggs the next three weeks. Most notably was Chris Lockett’s 16-point performance against San Diego State (followed by 19 points in the next five games before being pulled from the rotation), but it was the case for much of the team. Buchanan, Bowie, Carmichael, Ugbo, and Stanley all had varying degrees of breakouts that they didn’t sustain. By the end of the year, I think most players had find their proper roles, but once again… Too little, too late.
Where does Boise State go from here?
For the first time in a long time, Boise State had an underwhelming season. After three straight tournament appearances, the Broncos took a step backwards. This program will now look to take a step forward and prove that this season was a blip within an upwards growth trend, not a backslide for the program. The Broncos lose three seniors (Stanley, Degenhart and Cardenas) and have lost three players to the transfer portal so far (Anderson, Lockett and Ugbo). Bronco Nation News will be doing player reviews for each player on the team, looking at the year that was and their potential role for next season, as well as any transfer news that we get. Be sure to follow along and see how the Broncos bounce back in 2025-26.
