Two areas that doomed the Boise State Broncos men's basketball team in the Mountain West title game reared their head again Saturday afternoon at the College Basketball Crown tournament.
In the semifinal of the CBC, stretches of stagnant offense and an opponent's hot shooting from three-point range ended Boise State's season. Despite a hot start, the Broncos fell 79-69 to the Nebraska Cornhuskers on Saturday.
Not normally a good shooting team from deep, Nebraska (20-14) connected on 12 of 19 three-point attempts in the victory. Using timely made threes to keep the Broncos just out of arm's reach, the Cornhuskers led the entire second half.
Senior Tyson Degenhart went out with a bang for Boise State (26-11). Degenhart, Boise State's all-time leading scorer, scored a game-high 26 points and added eight rebounds. In his last collegiate game, adding to the record books, Degenhart became the school's single season scoring leader.
Andrew Meadow scored 14 points for Boise State and freshman Pearson Carmichael scored 13, all in the first half.
After lighting up the scoreboard the last two games, Boise State shot 39.7 percent from the field and 33.3. percent from deep. The Broncos also had only 31 rebounds to Nebraska's 38 and finished with nine turnovers.
Eight of those turnovers happened in the first half, often on bad entry passes into the post. Alvaro Cardenas had six turnovers and finished with only four points on 2 of 8 shooting. The senior did finish with a game-high nine assists.
Nebraska shot a tad over 46 percent overall, finding open shots inside and out. Juwan Gary led the Cornhuskers with 21 points and nine rebounds. Leading scorer Brice Williams, who entered the game averaging 29 points in the tournament, finished with 14 points and six assists.
Sam Hoiberg also reached double digits, finishing with 10 points.
Cornhuskers advance to the championship game on Sunday, where they will face the winner of UCF and Villanova.
First half: Hot and cold Broncos
Boise State picked up right where they left off from game's one and two, with Degenhart connecting on a three-pointer to get things started.
A Carmichael three-pointer had the Broncos up five early, but Nebraska hit early, too. A three by Williams later tied the game at 13 and the teams appeared to be set for a track meet.
Nebraska, however, started to struggle. The Cornhuskers made only 5 of 18 from the field to start the game. A mini 11-4 run by Boise State, capped by a Carmichael three, had the Broncos up 24-17 with just under eight minutes left in the first half.
The lead remained seven at 26-19 when a three-pointer by Hoiberg started a 15-1 run by the Cornhuskers. The Broncos went over four minutes without a field goal and, in a blink of an eye, Boise State found themselves down by eight.
A brief spurt at the end of the half brought the Broncos to within six at 39-33 after 20 minutes of play.
In addition to Carmichael's 13 points in the half, Degenhart had eight. These two were a combined 8 of 13 from the field, with the rest of the team shooting 5 of 16.
Second half: Not enough stops to fuel rally
The Broncos began the half 1 of 4 while Nebraska continued to find range from deep. Three-pointers by Hoiberg and Gary grew the Nebraska lead to 12 in the first minutes of the second half.
Meadow knocked down a three of his own and two free throws from Degenhart shrunk the gap to seven. But any time the Broncos crept closer, the Cornhuskers would find a timely set on offense. Even with Boise State did find stops, they either failed to capitalize or they let Nebraska get multiple chances when failing to secure a rebound. Nebraska used a 10-3 run after the Degenhart free throws to increase the lead to 14.
One stretch in the half saw Degenhart scored 10 straight for the Broncos. A Javan Buchanan bucket with 7:39 left gave Boise State life, shrinking the gap to eight points. But in the next three minutes, the Broncos were again outscored 10-3, with Nebraska gaining their biggest lead at 15.
One final push saw Boise State close the gap to seven but by then, it was too little too late.
Buchanan finished with eight points for the Broncos, adding six rebounds. After the bench had been so dominant in the previous two games, the unit struggled, scoring only 12 points and failing to notch an assist.
image credit: Flickr
More on Boise State Broncos men's basketball:
- College Basketball Crown: Victory over Butler
- College Basketball Crown: Victory over George Washington
- Broncos fall in MW title game
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