What Happened?
The Broncos won this afternoon, 62-58, vs the Montana State Bobcats. Javon Buchanan led all scorers with 19 points, 9 rebounds, and he went 9-9 from the free throw line. He also had the go-ahead putback and free throw to give the Broncos the lead with 1:10 left in the game. Montana State was led by Davian Brown, who scored 16 points and shot 3-7 from behind the arc. Three other players were in double figures: Drew Fielder (13), Andrew Meadow (14), and Dylan Andrews (10).
Did We Really Win?
In the game of basketball, to win a game, you must score more points than your opponent. By that definition, we did in fact win this game. The stats tell us we need to thank the basketball gods; Montana State couldn’t shoot free throws. The Broncos shot 33% from the field and 29% from behind the arc. That is the worst field goal percentage in BSU history in a win. Our saving grace was free throws. In a game where we went 6-12 on layups, had 8 turnovers, and lost the rebound battle 36-35, we went 20-22 from the free-throw line while MSU went 6-11.
The Broncos were up 35-30 going into halftime. The team looked to start the second half on a run to pull away from the scrappy Bobcat team. The Broncos started the second half on a 8-0 run. By the time the first media timeout horn sounded, the Broncos were up 11 thanks to some hot shooting from Andrew Meadow.
Instead of continuing to pull away, they decided to put the car in cruise control. The Bobcats proceeded to go on a 15-0 run in 5 minutes. By the time the second media time horn sounded, the Broncos looked up and were down 4. The score was 49-45 with 11:37 left in the second half. The Broncos only scored 17 more points the rest of the game. They had scoring droughts of 5 minutes and 3 minutes. Fortunately for the team, MSU couldn’t hit anything either. In the last 2 minutes of the game, the Broncos ended on a 7-0 run, which included this massive offensive rebound from Javan Buchanan to seal it.
Where Do We Go From Here?
This is the second game this season an inferior opponent has come into Extra Mile Arena and given this team a heart attack. Thankfully, we survived this heat attack, but not by much. After back-to-back blowouts, this team looked like it had corrected course and was looking like a Mountain West contender. After tonight, we are asking ourselves the same questions after the Hawaii Pacific loss. Can this team, which looks unstoppable on paper, win games against good teams?
What’s Next?
We get to find out whether this team is for real starting Tuesday. Undefeated Wichita St comes to Extra Mile Arena Tuesday night at 7pm. After that game, we go to Maui for the Maui Invitational against USC, which is ranked 19th in KenPom. These first 4 games were supposed to be the easy ones. The next couple of games will make or break this team’s future outlook. Let’s hope the good Bronco team shows up instead of the team that doesn’t know how to shoot a basketball.
