Boise State officially adds JUCO transfers; Broncos may be road warriors; NNU homecoming
There may not be a college basketball coach in the country who knows junior college transfer Naje Smith as well as Boise State’s Leon Rice.
Smith spent two years on the same AAU basketball team as Rice’s son, Max. The Broncos’ coach rarely missed a game or practice, and when it became obvious Smith needed a couple years to develop at the junior college level, Rice helped him get into Cochise College in Arizona.
“First of all, I just loved his personality,” Rice said Thursday. “When you recruit the person first and the talent second, I think that makes you a better evaluator because you’re really evaluating for the right reasons.”
Smith and fellow junior college transfer Lukas Milner signed with Boise State on Thursday, which marked the beginning of the NCAA’s signing period. Both plan to join the Broncos this summer, and both have two years of eligibility remaining with a third available via redshirt.
Smith is a 6-foot-7 forward from Spokane, Washington, who Rice said has a 7-foot-1 wingspan. Milner is a 6-10 center who posted eight double-doubles this winter for Johnson County Community College.
They’ll join forces with incoming freshmen Burke Smith (6-11) and Kasean Pryor (6-8) to give the Broncos plenty of size to help make up for the potential loss of both of last season’s top rebounders, R.J. Williams and Derrick Alston Jr., and the graduation of 6-10 senior Robin Jorch.
Smith and Pryor joined guard Jace Whiting in signing their national letters of intent in November.
“It gives us some guys with some size, guys who can play above the rim and guys who have plenty of upside,” Rice said.
Smith averaged 23.3 points and 8.5 rebounds last season at Cochise, and he was named Arizona Community College Athletic Conference Player of the Year.
“The second half of this year, Naje really carried us,” Cochise coach Jerry Carrillo said. “Not only did he put up points and rebound the ball, but he made guys around him better and was a great teammate.”
Milner finished the season as the NJCAA Division II national leader in field-goal percentage (71.4), and he averaged 12 points, 7.2 rebounds and 1.7 blocks a game.
“He is a big kid who can run the floor,” Johnson County coach Mike Jeffers said. “You could see an increased desire between his freshman and sophomore year. He got hungrier. He was in the weight room more and in the gym more. He’s like a lot of kids, you put in the time and it pays off.”
Broncos may be road warriors
Rice also said Thursday that he plans to be aggressive while putting the finishing touches on the 2020-21 schedule, especially with nationwide concerns over athletic department budgets after winter and spring sports were shut down due to the coronavirus.
He said the difficulty in getting teams to come to Boise and budgetary concerns could put the Broncos on the road more than in past seasons and in search of more games with guaranteed payouts.
“We don’t have a lot of fat in our budget,” Rice said. “That might be a way we can really save the department some money, and maybe even go out and raise some.”
Rice declined to give specifics but said the program is in talks with a lot of “high-level teams.” Oregon, BYU and Tulsa highlighted Boise State’s nonconference schedule last season, and Rice said the Broncos will face Tulsa again next season.
In November, they’ll also play in the Orlando Invitational, which Rice called one of the best tip-off tournaments in the country. It also features Auburn, Michigan State, Gonzaga, Xavier, Belmont, Siena and St. Louis.
“There’s going to be a really good team that goes home 0-3,” Rice said.
High school stars come home
Two Idaho products are making a homecoming, as the Northwest Nazarene University women’s basketball team announced Thursday that it was adding transfers Lydia Nieto and Nyalam Thabach to the roster.
Nieto — a two-time 4A state player of the year at Bishop Kelly — is a point guard who comes in as a junior after spending the past two seasons at Division II Azusa Pacific. As a freshman, she averaged 5.3 points a game. As a sophomore, she put up 3.6 points a night and posted 24 assists.
Thabach is a 6-2 forward who comes in as a sophomore after playing limited minutes last season at Division I UC Santa Barbara, where she averaged 1.9 points a game.
As a senior at Borah High, Thabach was named first-team all-state and led the Lions to the 5A state tournament.
This story was originally published April 17, 2020 at 9:39 AM.
