Boise St. Broncos vs. Colorado St. Rams Pick & Prediction JANUARY 9th 2024

No. 17 Colorado State looks to get back on track Tuesday at Boise State after suffering a loss in which it struggled late at Utah State on Saturday night.

The Broncos (10-4, 1-0 Mountain West) are coming off Friday’s 78-69 win at San Jose State and dropped four spots in the latest Top 25 poll.

The Rams (13-2, 1-1) lost 77-72 to newly ranked Utah State after they could not convert a field goal attempt for almost four minutes in a span in which the Aggies went on a 10-0 run.

Utah State, which made 63 percent of its shots from the field in the second half, took a 65-57 lead with 3:57 left after the run.

Nique Clifford and Patrick Cartier had 18 and 15 points, respectively, but were playing with four fouls during Utah State’s 10-0 run.

Clifford and Cartier eventually fouled out.

“Our defense really kind of fell apart,” Colorado State coach Niko Medved said. “Too many mistakes. We lost our discipline and we had some guys that, maybe because they were in foul trouble, were maybe playing a little bit tentative defensively.

“You can’t do that because that was not good enough.”

Isaiah Stevens led the Rams with 21 points and eight assists. He made 8 of 16 shots from the field, 4 of 8 from 3-point range.

The Broncos ended their game by outscoring San Jose State 30-12 over the final 10 minutes after the Spartans led 57-48 with 10:36 remaining.

O’Mar Stanley, who scored a career-best 30 points and collected 11 rebounds, was 7 of 8 from the free-throw line in the waning minutes.

Boise State held San Jose State’s MJ Amey to five points in the second half after he scored 25 in the first half.

The Broncos’ Tyson Degenhart had 17 of his 21 points in the second half.

“It feels a lot better than going home 0-1,” Degenhart said. “It was a much-needed win for us to get off on the right foot in conference play. It feels good to start it out the right way.”

Boise State coach Leon Rice was critical of his team’s 15 turnovers that led to 22 points for San Jose State.

The Spartans had 21 fast-break points compared to only seven for the Broncos.

Boise State trailed for 30:53 of the game.

“People will look at the score tomorrow and back in the old days they’d pick up the paper in the morning and say, ‘Well, that looked easy. That must have been easy,'” Rice said. “But no, when you saw it in person, there was a lot going against us.”

Boise State won the rebounding battle 43-23 against San Jose State.

Colorado State was outrebounded 45-33 by Utah State.

The Rams also went 4 of 11 at the free-throw line compared to 20 of 23 for the Aggies.

“We got outscored by 16 from the free-throw line,” Medved said. “A lot of that is we have to make them and we have to play with more physicality.

“Disappointing because I thought we had an opportunity tonight. They executed better than we did down the stretch.”

–Field Level Media