Boise State basketball, cross country teams have pivotal weekend ahead

Leon Rice has analyzed the film. He’s had time to digest what happened to his Boise State men’s basketball team in its season-opening loss to Idaho State in Taco Bell Arena.

Now the Broncos get their first chance to erase the disappointment.

“It’s never as good as you think, because there’s times when you walk out and you’re like, ‘Oh, that was the greatest,’ and it’s not,” Rice said in a press conference on Wednesday. “And it’s never as bad as you think. ... There were moments in that game where we were fantastic and we were clicking along really good, and then I think the biggest disappointment was probably how we handled the adversity.”

Boise State (0-1) hosts Jackson State (0-2) of the Southwestern Athletic Conference at 8 p.m. Friday at Taco Bell Arena. The Boise State women (2-0) open the night at 5:30 p.m. against Northwest Christian (3-4).

Fans who arrive to the women’s game before halftime receive free admission to the men’s game. Fans arriving after halftime of the women’s game receive normal single-game prices.

Boise State led Idaho State by as many as 18 points in the second half, but the Bengals fought back and made two free throws with 0.6 seconds left for a 72-70 win. The loss snapped a 24-game home nonconference winning streak for BSU.

“I don’t want this to sound the wrong way, because I don’t think we have selfish guys. I really don’t,” Rice said. “But sometimes I felt like we came apart because it became, ‘I’ll go fix it.’ When it’s ‘we’ and it’s we before me, then we’re pretty good and we make each other better.”

Friday’s game against Jackson State will be the Broncos’ last home game in the month of November. Boise State plays three games in the Cayman Island Classic next week and then hits the road for nonconference matchups at Drake (Nov. 27) and Grand Canyon (Dec. 1).

The Broncos return home Dec. 8 for a 2 p.m. game against Central Washington.

“You can’t just lose a game, get all fired up and do it for a day and a half, and then forget about it,” Rice said. “I think that’s what they have to learn. The thing that the veterans know is it’s not the winning and losing that changes my behavior as far as how I feel, it’s how we do it. If we’re not doing it our way, the Boise State way, then that’s upsetting.

“If somebody’s good enough to beat us, so be it, but not when we kind of beat ourselves.”

For the Boise State women, Friday’s game is a must-win as they chase a potential Top 25 ranking. The Broncos host No. 5 Louisville at 7 p.m. Monday, and a strong showing could vault them into the rankings for just the second time in program history.

“It’s a great challenge for us,” Boise State women’s coach Gordy Presnell said. “It’s a great measuring stick to see where we’re at and how far we have to go.”

Boise State’s 1993-94 team was ranked for the final 10 weeks of the season, climbing as high as No. 17.

Cross country: Broncos head to nationals

From the beginning of the season, Boise State coach Corey Ihmels has been keeping a countdown to nationals on a whiteboard in the Broncos’ team room at Dona Larsen Park.

That countdown hits zero on Saturday.

The women’s 6-kilometer race begins at 9:45 a.m. MT on the Thomas Zimmer Championship Course in Madison, Wisconsin. The men follow with a 10k race at 10:45 a.m. MT.

The Broncos enter the NCAA National Championships with the highest rankings in program history. The women are currently tied for third with Colorado in the USTFCCCA Coaches’ Poll, while the men are ranked ninth.

A podium finish (fourth place or better) isn’t out of the question for either team.

“I think both groups have had this as the big goal and that’s what we set out to do,” Ihmels said in a press conference earlier this week. “So here we are. We’re three or four days away from seeing if we can get it done.”

Athletic department earns record Graduation Success Rate

Boise State posted a school-record 90 percent NCAA Graduation Success Rate (GSR) in the most recent version released Wednesday.

Each year, the NCAA publicly announces the GSR of all Division I institutions. The graduation-rate data are based on a six-year cycle, and the most recent include freshmen who entered college in 2011.

Boise State’s latest rate is one of the top five scores in Mountain West history and topped last year’s school record of 87 percent.

Seven Boise State teams tied or set program records, including men’s and women’s tennis, women’s soccer and women’s golf, all of which achieved perfect scores of 100 percent. The list also includes softball (95 percent), swimming and diving (92 percent) and men’s basketball (89 percent).

The Broncos’ football team posted a GSR of 89 percent, tied for the 11th-best score in the FBS.