Leon Rice Says “Players Kept on Believing” to Win at The Pit
It would have been easy if you were a Boise State basketball fan to turn off the TV Tuesday night as the broncos played at New Mexico.
BSU was 1-5 all time at The Pit, the name for the Lobo's arena and they were down by 11 points at halftime and by as many as 13 points during the game.
Even with just 57 seconds left the Broncos were down by six points 71-65. That's when the magic began!
Chris Sengfelder hit a three point shot and just like that it was 71-68. Seconds later Chandler Hutchison intercepted an errant New Mexico pass at half court and went in uncontested for a slam dunk, 71-70 BSU down by just one point with 24 seconds to play.
New Mexico called a time out and when they tried to inbound the ball they faced a BSU trapping defense which led to yet another bad Lobo pass which was picked up by Hutchison who converted a layup, 72-71 Boise State with 16 seconds to play.
Boise State added a free throw to make it 73-71 and a desperation drive to the bucket with time running out failed to find net and BSU's Marcus Dickinson rebounded the ball at the buzzer! He was simultaneously pushed to the ground by New Mexico's Joe Furstiner and the benches emptied. There were pushes and shoves but no punches were thrown and Lobo coach Paul Weir later apologized saying he was sick about the shove the game.
Boise State is now 10-2 in Mountain West play and 20-4 overall, the 6th straight year Boise State head coach Leon Rice has led his team to 20 wins or more.
The Broncos play at Utah State Saturday before hosting Nevada a week from tonight. The Pack is currently 9-1 in league and hosts UNLV tonight.
As for scoring in Albuquerque, Chris Sengfelder led the way with a career high 24 points and 7 rebounds while Chandler Hutchison had a double double, 23 points and 12 rebounds.
After the game Boise State head coach Leon Rice said his team just kept believing and fighting and that's all he could ask!