Boise State basketball holds off Nevada to keep Mountain West Tournament bye hopes alive
Boise State basketball fans have become accustomed to Tyson Degenhart and Alvaro Cardenas leading the way this season.
However, in one of Boise State’s most thrilling games of the season, which saw 14 lead changes and six ties, sophomore forward Andrew Meadow and junior forward Javan Buchanan guided Boise State to a big road win at Nevada on Saturday afternoon.
Meadow scored a career-high 24 points and Buchanan added 17 to lift the Broncos (19-8, 11-5 Mountain West) to a 70-69 victory over Nevada (15-12, 7-9).
Degenhart also had 14 points, while Cardenas finished with eight points and nine assists.
The victory kept the Broncos in fifth place in the Mountain West standings, with a multiple-game advantage over sixth-place UNLV — the top five teams earn a first-round bye in the Mountain West Tournament.
The Broncos have been on the wrong side of many final-minute road losses this season. With the shot clock turned off and Boise State nursing a one-point lead, it was a relief for fans to see Buchanan steal the ball from Nevada star Kobe Sanders, helping release Meadow for a huge dunk.
“One-hundred percent it was definitely my best game,” Meadow told KBOI. “And it just feels good that we came through with the W more than anything.”
Unlike the first game between the two teams last month, which saw Nevada lead 1-0 and then trail the rest of the game, Saturday’s game was back and forth in a game Boise State simply could not lose if it wanted to keep alive NCAA Tournament hopes.
After the Broncos missed their first seven 3-point attempts and trailed 23-13, Meadow finally sank a shot from beyond the arc to spark a 21-9 run. Despite the slow start, Boise State entered halftime with a 34-32 lead.
Meadow scored 13 of his points in the first half.
“We know the game is not going to be won in the first half,” Meadow said. “So we’ve got to just withstand all of their punches. They’re going to give us their best shot every single moment of the game. They want the win. We want the win. But we just had to show that we wanted it more than them.”
While Meadow continued to impress in the second half, Buchanan also joined the party. He had a game-high 19 points against Nevada last month, and he wasn’t shy to let the ball fly in the final 20 minutes.
Buchanan went 7-for-9 from the floor, including 3-for-3 from beyond the arc.
“Javan had a little stretch against their zone,” Boise State coach Leon Rice said. “Because they’re big and fast, so that zone creates some problems. They know that our numbers from 2 were so good; they know that we’ve got to improve a little bit from 3 now and then.”
Boise State needed the big night from Meadow and Buchanan to combat Nevada’s Sanders. The fifth-year guard had a game-high 30 points, including a 13-for-19 night from the field and a highlight dunk over Boise State senior forward O’Mar Stanley.
‘When their Kobe shows up and looks like Kobe (Bryant), and for us to get the win after he gets 30, that tells you a lot about our guys,” Rice said. “That’s the guy NBA scouts were talking about in November. And we got to see that, unfortunately, tonight, but we found a way and made some impressive plays down the stretch.”
The win could prove crucial if Boise State winds up on the NCAA Tournament bubble next month. Winning the Mountain West Tournament means an automatic bid; otherwise, the Broncos really can’t afford anymore regular season losses.
The next game huge: at home against Utah State (23-4, 13-3) at 7 p.m. Wednesday. Last month, a late 3-pointer sunk the Broncos when the teams met in Logan, Utah. The Aggies are battling New Mexico (22-5, 14-2) for the regular season title.
This story was originally published February 22, 2025 at 7:24 PM.
