Too much Christmas spirit? Boise State hoops gifts win to Nevada in MW opener
Christmas is often called the season of giving, and the Boise State basketball team was feeling full of holiday generosity on Saturday night in Reno, Nevada.
In the first game of Mountain West conference play, Boise State (8-4, 0-1 Mountain West) turned the ball over 13 times en route to an 81-66 loss to Nevada (9-3, 1-0) in the Wolf Pack’s Lawlor Events Center.
Nevada scored 20 points off of those 13 turnovers in what ultimately ended up being the difference in a game in which Boise State entered as the slight favorites. The Wolf Pack were somewhat less magnanimous, turning the ball over just seven times, six of which came in the final 10 minutes when the game felt out of reach for the Broncos.
“(Nevada) coach (Steve) Alford knows us, and he knows that we’re a physical team, and he got his team ready to go as far as the physicality of the game,” Boise State head coach Leon Rice told KBOI in a post-game interview. “... They came out and hit us first, and then our response was bad technique.”
Ball security issues may have headlined Boise State’s rough night, but it was far from the Broncos’ only problem in the 15-point loss, which is the team’s largest loss margin this season.
The first sign of trouble came in the opening 10 minutes, when junior forwards Drew Fielder and Andrew Meadow had both picked up two fouls apiece. Meadow managed to play through the fouls, but Fielder — the Broncos’ leading scorer on the season — spent just six minutes on the court in the first half.
By the time Fielder was ready to come back out for the second half, the Broncos already trailed 36-26 and would only get to within six points of the Wolf Pack before the score quickly got out of hand.
Meadow finished the night with a team-high 16 points, while Fielder had only 6 — both also ended the game with four fouls.
The Broncos’ second leading scorer, senior forward Javan Buchanan, was also held to just two points on an 0-for-3 shooting night after being double-teamed and neutralized inside the paint for much of the game.
“We knew the double was coming,” Rice said. “They did a good job of getting it out of there, and then we didn’t make them pay for doubling enough.”
While the Broncos’ typical producers were struggling, two newer faces did step up in their stead: Sixth-year forward Dominic Parolin had a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds, while freshman forward Spencer Ahrens scored 11 points.
However, their efforts weren’t enough to repel a 24-point night from Nevada guard Tayshawn Comer, who went an impressive 13-for-14 from the free throw line.
“It was just coming my way,” Parolin told KBOI when asked about his rebounding. “I was in the right place at the right time.”
Parolin managed to get to the charity stripe plenty of times himself because of his rebounding, making 11 of his 14 free throw attempts. But the Broncos as a team went just 19-for-31 from the free-throw line, including missing the front end of several one-and-ones.
The tough shooting night at the line was indicative of a larger issue, as the Broncos shot just 20-for-45 (44.4%) from the field. Twenty-two of those shots came from beyond the arc, and only seven found their way into the net — three of those seven makes came from Ahrens.
The Broncos went through several scoring droughts throughout the evening, including five minutes late in the first half without a field goal and another four-minute period to open the second half without scoring from the field.
That was in stark contrast to the Wolf Pack, who shot 25-for-45 (55.6%) from the field as a group, but also enjoyed several streaks of hitting five or more shots in a row.
“We had a lot of guys who looked a step slow,” Rice said. “They were quicker to the ball than us, and then we gave them 20 points off our turnovers, which is kind of uncharacteristic for us. I don’t think we did a good job of taking what we were trying to do and what we were doing in practice.”
