Boise State Men’s basketball had their two-game series against Fresno State Bulldogs cut down to a single game because of COVID-19 complications.
The Mountain West announced in a statement on Jan. 22 that the second game in the series was to be postponed.
The statement made it clear that “due to COVID-19 issues within the Boise State men’s basketball program, the series finale against Fresno State on Friday, Jan. 22 has been postponed. The rescheduled date will be announced once finalized by the Mountain West and both institutions.”
Photo by Mackenzie Hudson | The Arbiter
Boise State did not have the minimum of seven scholarship players available to play. The team has since announced that through testing consistent with Boise State and Mountain West protocols the patient was actually a false positive.
The Broncos’ Jan. 20 matchup against the Bulldogs resulted in a 73-51 Boise State win. This was the Broncos’ 13th win in a row and kept them undefeated in Mountain West play (9-0).
Guard Derrick Alston Jr. led all scorers with 21 points and added four rebounds and four assists.
Photo by Mackenzie Hudson | The Arbiter
Despite the 22-point margin of victory, the Broncos went into the locker room at halftime down by two. The score would remain close in the early stages of the second half before the Broncos went on a 30-5 run to close out the game.
“Credit to them. They really stunned us in the first half with their physicality and kind of how they were guarding us defensively,” Alston said. “Orlando [Robinson] definitely had it going in the first half, but there’s no panic in us. We definitely had a thing where we weren’t ourselves in that first half and I think that was by far one of our worst halves. We were fortunate enough to only be down by two [at halftime]. So, I’m just proud of the guys and how we responded in that second half and came out from the jump and really asserted our will and got back to playing Bronco basketball.”
Boise State Head Coach Leon Rice voiced his pleasure with how his team responded to a cold start in his opening statement after the game.
“These guys are elite at their response. And I’ve got veterans that are just like ‘no, that’s enough, we’re gonna fix it.’ And they did. And the staff did a great job at halftime of calming them down,” Rice said. “When you start to win games and start to get on a roll, outside voices make it feel like it’s supposed to start out 30-0 and then the other team might score too, and that’s not realistic, that’s not Division I basketball.”
Boise State’s next scheduled game will be at Colorado State on Jan. 27, at 7 p.m.