Boise State hoops will look different in 2026, with a huge emphasis at one end
Boise State men’s basketball has been able to lean on its offense for a lot of recent success, letting guys like Tyson Degenhart and Drew Fielder put up 20-point performances, or assist machine Alvaro Cardenas carve up a defense with his passing, or Max Rice, Justinian Jessup and Derrick Alston hit 3-pointers.
But in three straight NCAA Tournament seasons — 2021-22 through ‘23-24 — and a 2020-21 season that saw the Broncos reach the NIT quarterfinals, they could rely on defense as well, never allowing more than 67.3 points per game. The 2021-22 season was especially strong, with BSU allowing just 60.9 points per game, ranking 13th out of 358 teams in the country.
Last season, the second straight one in which Boise State missed the NCAA tourney, the team defense faltered, allowing 73.5 points per game to rank No. 166 in the country. The season also saw embarrassing losses to Division II school Hawaii Pacific and to No. 11 seed San Jose State in the first round of the 2026 Mountain West Tournament.
Of course, there have been some good moments the past two seasons as well — a trip to the conference tournament final in 2025 was a highlight, as well as three-straight wins against Saint Mary’s — but not enough for head coach Leon Rice and his staff to stay the course.
Rice’s team has seen a major upheaval since the end of the season, with zero starters returning, and it appeared that the Broncos were looking for a different profile of player in the transfer portal than in recent years: bigger, more athletic players who can make a difference on the defensive end.
There’s 6-foot-9 redshirt sophomore forward Jerquarius Stanback, who averaged two blocks per game at Alabama State and has already proved to be a menace on the glass this spring. He’ll be alongside 6-foot-11 center Jikany Deang, who averaged nearly 10 rebounds a game last year at North Dakota State College of Science.
Then there’s the addition of former Illinois guard Ty Rodgers, who was supposed to add a huge defensive component to the Broncos’ backcourt, but his status for the season is up in the air after a “significant” lower-body injury in early June.
Rodgers’ teammate in the backcourt, redshirt senior guard Damari Wheeler-Thomas, met with the media for the first time as a Bronco on Thursday and confirmed the direction that Boise State will go this season.
“I’d definitely say grit and fight, and definitely the defensive side of things, because everything always takes care of itself offensively,” said Wheeler-Thomas, who previously played for North Dakota State. “If you can get teams to (not) score on you a lot, you’ve always got a chance to win games.”
In the 2025-26 season, Boise State ranked 4th out of 12 Mountain West teams for points scored per game (78.2), but just 9th-best in points allowed with that 73.5 average in league games — and all three teams ranked below the Broncos will be remaining in the Mountain West next season, while BSU and five others jump to the Pac-12.
“Defense is probably gonna be our main thing, because if we stop teams from scoring a lot, we always give ourselves a chance to win,” Wheeler-Thomas said.
The defensive buy-in isn’t just from the newcomers.
Junior forward Pearson Carmichael is the team’s leading returning scorer (7.9 per game), and he knows there’s no room to slouch on defense.
Carmichael said Thursday that he doesn’t want to “be as much of a liability” on defense, and that he’s been working hard on guarding the ball and challenging the opposition’s best player.
“Our defense is turning up this year to lead to our offense. Defense is the most important part of the game,” Carmichael said. “I think this year is just being more aggressive, more dawg, more hunger on the defensive end to get us the ball back to go down there and score.”
