With a heavy Spokane presence, Boise State closes in on back-to-back trips to NCAA Tournament
Spokane South – aka Boise State University – appears primed to make back-to-back trips to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.
A close-knit, tough-minded group that includes two former Greater Spokane League players and a former Gonzaga assistant and his high-scoring son – will be watching closely when selections are announced next Sunday.
“It’s nice to be able to shine that light on people from Spokane,” said BSU senior Naje Smith from Spokane. “Having a basketball community that we’re all from is really nice.”
The light was never brighter than Feb. 28 – Senior Day for Smith, a 2018 graduate of Spokane’s Lewis and Clark High School. BSU rallied to beat 18th-ranked San Diego State 66-62 in front of 12,208 hometown fans at sold-out ExtraMile Arena.
“That was definitely something special – the energy, the fans and players,” said Smith of BSU beating its highest-ranked opponent since knocking off No. 15 Washington in 1998. “It was historic almost – people are going to talk about this for a long, long time.”
Despite falling to Utah State 86-73 on Saturday, the Broncos (23-8 overall and 13-5 in the Mountain West Conference) still seem to have a realistic path to the tournament. ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has them as a No. 9 seed in his latest bracketology. The MWC Tournament begins this week in Las Vegas.
Boise State bowed out of the NCAA Tournament a year ago in the first round. Seeded eighth, BSU fell 64-53 to Memphis, and would have faced No. 1 seed Gonzaga in the second round had the Broncos advanced.
Boise received at-large berths in the NCAA Tournament in 2013 and 2015, then won the automatic bid a year ago when they won the league’s tournament title with their third win of the season over San Diego State. All three of those previous appearances came under head coach Leon Rice, a former Gonzaga assistant.
The resume this season for the Broncos includes includes three Quad 1 victories and a No. 27 ranking in the NET.
“I don’t get a say in that, but it sure feels like it,” Rice said after the SDSU game of his team’s NCAA Tournament chances. He’s hoping BSU can secure its ninth NCAA berth in school history and get a shot at improving its 0-8 all-time record in the tourney.
“Our body of work has been really good this year,” said Tyson Degenhart, the 6-7 sophomore forward from Mt. Spokane High School.
Tops in that body of work? The win over San Diego State. In that game, Smith contributed 10 points and six rebounds, and Degenhart had 14 points and three boards.
“It felt great,” explained Smith of the postseason feel to the SDSU game. “For a moment there, I couldn’t hear anything. It just gave me so much energy that I wanted to keep playing my hardest and feed off the crowd’s energy. It was a great boost.”
“I was just so proud of our guys and how we just stayed together, even in those moments where it got super tense,” Degenhart said. “We fought through so much adversity, and I’m glad we could send the seniors out the right way.”
Rice’s son, Max, provided the heroics against the Aztecs with 26 points. Boise State trailed 60-52 with 4:48 to play, but the Broncos had an improbable 14-0 run to end the game and register their 14th straight win at home.
“My teammates kept getting me the ball and I was feeding off the energy,” Max Rice said as he sat next to Smith at the postgame press conference. “I couldn’t dream of anything better than this and sending out one of my best friends right here with a huge win, which in my opinion secures us in the NCAA Tournament. It was a great night.”
And it’s obviously been another great season for the Broncos under Leon Rice, who was an assistant at Gonzaga from 1999-2010. He’s the winningest coach in Boise State history, going 267-153 in his 13 seasons. Two of his assistants also have local connections: Mike Burns, the former head coach at Eastern Washington, and Roberto Bergeson, who was an assistant coach at EWU last year.
The staff has leaned on players like Smith, whose grit has helped him steadily grow as an NCAA Division I player. This season, he’s averaging 9.7 points and 5.5 rebounds per game.
“When I got here it was a team that was trying to find our identity,” said Smith, who played two seasons at Cochise College in Arizona before landing at BSU. “Then we figured out we were a whole bunch of tough-nosed guys ready to work, and we’ve kind of stuck with that culture and have built upon it. It’s already been a part of Boise State, but we’ve done a good job of exemplifying and showing that culture through our play.”
Degenhart, averaging 14.3 points and 5.3 rebounds, graduated in 2021 from Mt. Spokane and was the MWC Freshman of the Year in 2021-22.
“We definitely can tell we’re a tested, seasoned team with a lot of vets,” said Degenhart, now a sophomore. “That really shows through in games when you need to run your sets and get buckets, or you need to get stops. A lot of guys step up.”