‘It hurts.’ Boise State men fall to Nevada on senior night; women learn tournament seed

With the Boise State men’s basketball team down by double digits, fans began to stream out of ExtraMile Arena with more than a minute left in the game.

Hunter McIntosh played the role of senior night spoiler.

The Nevada guard scored a season-high 26 points off the bench to propel the Wolf Pack to a 76-66 victory Tuesday night over the Broncos in their home finale. The loss dropped Boise State into a three-way tie for second in the Mountain West standings, a half-game behind first-place Utah State, with one regular-season game remaining.

“It hurts. You never want to send the seniors out sad,” Boise State junior Tyson Degenhart said. “I love all five of them, and they mean a lot to me. They mean a lot to this program, and I wish we could have done a better job tonight and got the win for them.”

While the Broncos honored seniors Chibuzo Agbo, Cam Martin, Max Rice, Mohamed Sylla and Sam Winter before tipoff, it was McIntosh who stole the show.

The 6-foot-3, 185-pound guard made as many 3-pointers as the Broncos did combined, going a perfect 6-for-6 from beyond the arc and 9-for-11 overall. The graduate transfer from Elon has been on a hot streak for the Wolf Pack of late, making 18 triples in his last four games despite averaging just 5.4 points per game this season.

“That kid gives them a weapon,” Boise State coach Leon Rice said. “He’s been on fire and we knew that, but we didn’t do a good enough job. Man, he’s stroking it.”

Boise State led 23-21 after a Degenhart 3-pointer with 6:15 on the clock in the first half, but it would be the Broncos’ last lead of the game. The Wolf Pack hit eight 3-pointers in the opening 20 minutes, including four from McIntosh, for a 35-29 advantage going into the intermission.

The Broncos were within 49-42 with 11:40 to play in the second half when the Wolf Pack mounted an 11-3 run to take their largest lead of the game, 60-45, with 7:41 remaining.

Nevada (25-6, 12-5 MW) finished 12-for-24 from deep, marking only the second time this season that the Broncos (21-9, 12-5) have allowed an opponent to shoot 50% or better from 3-point range.

“We want to control what we can control, and we can control playing really good D,” Leon Rice said. “But they’ve still gotta make the shots. I mean, going 12-for-24 in a high-level game is pretty impressive. And (McIntosh) going 6-for-6, man, every single one when he let it go, I knew they were in. That stroke is legit.”

Degenhart paced Boise State with his second double-double of the season, totaling 15 points and 12 rebounds. Max Rice added 15 points, and O’Mar Stanley and Agbo had nine points apiece.

The Broncos close out their Mountain West schedule against No. 21 San Diego State (22-8, 11-6) on Friday. Tipoff is 8 p.m. Mountain time at Viejas Arena in San Diego. The game will be televised on Fox Sports 1, or listen on the radio on 670 AM.

Big picture for NCAA Tournament

The Mountain West might be having its moment this season.

As it stands, seven conference teams are vying for NCAA Tournament bids: Boise State, Utah State, San Diego State, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado State and UNLV. One of those figures to get the automatic bid by winning the league tourney in Las Vegas next week.

The first six have shown up in mock brackets everywhere the past three weeks, and now the Rebels have forced themselves into the conversation. They beat San Diego State on Tuesday night — their fifth straight win — and could still win the regular season title and No. 1 seed in the Mountain West tourney.

Three games this weekend will sort things out for the top five seeds in the league tournament, which means avoiding a first-round game, and also could affect some NCAA pictures: Boise State at SDSU on Friday; New Mexico (21-8, 9-7) at Utah State (25-5, 13-4) on Saturday at 6:30 p.m.; and UNLV (19-10, 12-5) at Nevada on Saturday at 8:30 p.m.

The Broncos seem to be in good shape with five Quad 1 wins, only a single loss in Quads 3-4 and a strong nonconference schedule. But if they were to lose at San Diego State and not win the conference tournament, that’s 11 losses. Could an 11-loss Mountain West team feel safe on Selection Sunday?

Boise State has a very solid NET computer ranking, at No. 27, but looking at the impossible-to-understand computer rankings and deciphering which teams might be safe and which are in danger will just give you a headache.

For instance, UNLV is 6-3 in Quad 1 games, including a nonconference win over Creighton, has three losses in Quads 3-4 and beat New Mexico twice; the Lobos are 2-5 in Quad 1 games, have two losses in Quads 3-4 and beat no teams of note playing a weak nonconference schedule. New Mexico is No. 29 in the NET rankings and UNLV is No. 77.

BSU women earn No. 6 seed

The Boise State women’s basketball team wrapped up regular-season play with a 64-50 loss to Colorado State on Tuesday at Moby Arena in Fort Collins, Colorado.

The Broncos fell to 19-12 overall and 10-8 in Mountain West action, earning the No. 6 seed in the upcoming Mountain West Tournament in Las Vegas. Boise State will open tournament play against No. 11 Utah State at 8 p.m. Mountain time Sunday at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Boise State swept the season series with Utah State, winning 76-41 at home on Jan. 20 and 73-57 on Feb. 14 in Logan, Utah.

Assistant editor Jim Keyser contributed.