Owie Invitational: Loss to ranked ACC team puts Boise State in last-place game
Boise State basketball’s trip to Hawaii to play in the Maui Invitational for the first time has not been a bunch of fun in paradise.
After losing 70-67 to USC, the Broncos fell into the consolation bracket, where they met No. 23 N.C. State on Tuesday afternoon.
Boise State (4-3) got the Wolfpack (5-1) looking to bounce back from a loss to Seton Hall, and the Broncos fell 81-70 at the Lahaina Civic Center in Hawaii, trailing for nearly the entire second half.
N.C. State shot 50% from the field, while Boise State struggled again offensively while shooting 33 3-pointers.
“You can’t let good players get good looks,” BSU coach Leon Rice told KBOI after the game. “They’ve got a lot of good players. There’s a reason why there was 23 in front of their name.”
Atlantic Coast Conference preseason player of the year Darrion Williams scored a team-high 16 points for the Pack before fouling out in the final minutes, and was one of four players in double figures as N.C. State hit 27-of-54 shots, including 9-of-21 from 3-point range.
The Wolfpack also made 18-of-23 free throws, far better than Boise State’s 21-of-32 effort.
The loss means BSU will play the loser of Texas and Chaminade, a Division II private school based in Honolulu, in the 7th/8th place game on Wednesday at 10 p.m. Mountain time. The Broncos’ opener this season was a 79-78 loss to Hawaii Pacific, another Division II team from the islands.
Texas and Chaminade tipped off at 8:30 p.m. Mountain time Tuesday.
Rice said he was proud of the effort in the loss. The Broncos held the Wolfpack to a season-low 81 points, but once again, the offense was the problem. Boise State hit the 70 mark for the first time in four games — a span in which it is averaging 65 points per contest and not shooting the ball well.
The Broncos were 19-for-56 (33.9%) from the field and 11-for-33 (33.3%) from beyond the arc, and they had 15 turnovers while getting just 11 assists.
Senior guard Dylan Andrews led the team with 26 points, shooting 8-for-18 from the field, including 5-for-11 on 3-pointers. He was the only player to make more than three baskets — sophomore forward Pearson Carmichael (11 points) and redshirt senior guard RJ Keene (8) had three apiece.
N.C. State was extremely aggressive with its pressure defense, and forced Boise State into long possessions and contested shots.
“We’ve played against teams that pressure like that,” Carmichael told KBOI. “It took time for us to get used to it, but we just had to really get in the paint and drive everybody, and after that, it was pretty free-flowing.”
The first half was a game of runs. Both teams had 8-0 runs in the opening minutes, and N.C. State took a 20-10 lead with a 9-0 run. The Broncos then had a 12-0 run, only to see the Wolfpack respond with a 10-0 run that helped them lead 34-28 at halftime.
“We turned the ball over more than we wanted to, but that led to buckets for them,” Carmichael said. “And I think when we turned them over, it led us to fast breaks in transition and spread them out. I think that led to many runs in this game.”
Keene hit back-to-back 3-pointers early in the second half to fire the Broncos ahead 39-36, but another big N.C. State run, this one 12-3, put the Pack ahead for good, and they never let Boise State get too close.
“When you’ve got good teams playing, it’s punch, counterpunch. And we kept doing that, we kept coming back, and we kept fighting,” Rice said.
“We kept counterpunching. There was just one little stretch in the second half. We came out great at the start of the half, then there’s one little stretch in the second half where you can’t let good players get a lot of space.”
