Boise State men try ‘to take another step’; women adjust without key assistant
The Boise State men’s basketball team had a chance for a rare midseason mini-camp this week.
Rather than fly back to Boise on Sunday, the Broncos stayed in San Diego after Saturday night’s 83-65 loss to No. 7 San Diego State. Broncos coach Leon Rice said it eliminated two days of travel.
The team spent Monday diving into game film, got in a practice at the University of San Diego and bonded in preparation for the season’s home stretch. The Broncos left Tuesday afternoon en route to Colorado Springs, Colorado, for Wednesday’s game at Air Force (7 p.m.).
“I think our guys appreciated it. It was good bonding time, good focus time for us,” Rice said by phone Tuesday. “I’m excited about this team because I feel like we can keep getting better, and hopefully this practice time and this time together helps us take another step, because we have to.”
Extra time in San Diego also gave Rice more freedom to ponder the Broncos’ second lopsided road loss in their past three games. On Jan. 4, they fell 83-66 at Nevada.
On Saturday at San Diego State, the Broncos (11-7, 3-3 MW) found themselves in an early hole thanks to the hot-shooting Aztecs, who went into halftime with a 48-25 lead after hitting 57.6 percent of their first-half shots and going 8-of-13 from 3-point range.
“Their shooting at the start of that game was pretty impressive,” Rice said. “We’ve got to keep getting better, especially defensively. When a good team gets going, you’ve got to be able to bow your neck and give them more resistance.”
Things won’t get much easier for Boise State in the shooting category Wednesday. Air Force (8-9, 2-3 MW) is shooting 47.8 percent from the floor, which ranks No. 24 in the country, and 40.5 percent from 3-point range, which ranks No. 4 in the nation.
Senior guard Caleb Morris leads the Falcons with a 52.4 3-point field-goal percentage (33-of-63), while 6-foot-7 forward Scottie Lavelle leads the team with 14.8 points and 5.8 rebounds a night. Six-foot-8 center Ryan Swan is chipping in 14.3 points and 4.1 rebounds a game.
“When they get it rolling, they’re one of the best shooting teams in the country,” Rice said. “If you let them do what they want and hit shots, they can really get it rolling on you.”
Boise State women search for consistency
Boise State women’s basketball coach Gordy Presnell didn’t comment on assistant coach Cody Butler’s absence Tuesday, other than to say the matter was being handled by Boise State’s human resources department.
Butler, an assistant on the women’s staff since 2012, was placed on administrative leave Jan. 7 after a lawsuit surfaced alleging sexual abuse and harassment of a player during his time at Yakima Valley College.
“That’s all been kind of a personnel decision and human resources deal and handled above me,” Presnell said. “I don’t know any specifics, to be honest.”
Presnell did, however, heap praise on assistant coaches Cariann Ramirez and Heather Sower, and graduate assistant Mia Gallow.
“It’s the day-to-day things. All of a sudden, we lose a third of our scouts, and we do a lot of advance scouting,” Presnell said. “I think our team has really took a step forward and tried to be helpful as well.”
Butler was Presnell’s top defensive assistant and perhaps his most accomplished recruiter. Ramirez and Sower are now sharing defensive responsibilities, according to Presnell, who added that all of the Broncos’ recruits in the next two classes remain committed.
Presnell said an administrator spoke to the team after the news broke and Butler’s absence has added to the already full plates the Broncos’ coaches are balancing, but the players say it hasn’t been a distraction.
“We’ve stayed focused for the most part,” sophomore guard Jade Loville said Tuesday. “We’re here to play basketball. That’s our job, so we’re focused every practice, every game just doing what we have to do.”
That focus will be needed as the Broncos (12-6, 4-2 MW) are two games behind Mountain West-leading Fresno State. Boise State lost just two conference games all last season. Its 66-65 setback Jan. 8 at UNLV was its second this winter with 12 games left in the regular season.
“For everything that’s happened, we’ve actually played pretty good basketball, except for those 8 minutes,” Presnell said of the Broncos’ second-half collapse at UNLV. “I thought everyone was on the same page and we had great communication and great energy. The hard part anymore is everyone has to be engaged at the same moment.”
The Broncos have had a lead in both of this season’s conference losses. At UNLV, they led by 11 points with 8:33 left in regulation. On Jan. 1, they led by nine points in the second half of a 73-68 loss at Wyoming.
“That just can’t happen again,” said Loville, who scored a career-high 21 points in the Broncos’ 86-72 win at San Diego State on Saturday. “At San Diego State, we went into halftime feeling great, but we knew this was what was happening in the last game, so we just need to keep our foot on the gas.”
The Broncos are back in action at home Wednesday (7 p.m.), and they expect Air Force to be more of a challenge than its 4-12 record suggests.
“It’s one of those games where, very similarly to their football team, it’s all-out effort,” Presnell said. “They’re usually undersized and they’re quite bright, so they run a lot of great stuff and you have to handle your switches correctly and their screening correctly, so it becomes more of a cognitive game more than anything.”
The Falcons have won two of their past four games, including a 62-45 victory at Utah State. Air Force is led by junior guard Kaelin Immel, who averages 14.7 points a night.
“They play with a lot of physicality,” Loville said. “They keep trying no matter what the score is. They keep fighting until the last second. So, we’ve just got to match that and play our best game.”
This story was originally published January 14, 2020 at 4:27 PM.
