What Happened?

Boise State beat Butler 77 to 68. Dylan Andrews led all scorers with 20 points while shooting 11-13 from the FT line. Micahel Ajayi led Butler with 16 points and 8 rebounds. Four of the starting five for Boise State had 10 or more points. Javan and Andrew had 10, Drew had 16, and Dylan had 20. The bench also kicked in 23 points to help balance out the scoring. In typical Boise State victories, the Broncos won the rebounding battle, 45-31. This is the first Q1 win for the Broncos and the best non-conference win by any Mountain West team so far this season.

Defense Travels

When playing big games on the road, the most essential thing to pack is your defense. Offense will come and go, as all Bronco fans can testify, but the defense keeps you in games. Butler, coming into tonight, was averaging 87 points per game. Credit to Coach Burns for coming up with a defensive scheme that held Butler to nearly 20 points below their season average.

There Is No “I” In Team

It seems evident this season that there won’t be that one superstar player to lead this team to victory. In seasons past, if players like Max Rice, Tyson Degenheart, and Derick Marks didn’t get their 10-15 points, it meant the Broncos were going to lose that game. This season, the leading scorers in wins were Drew Fielder (3), Andrew Meadow, Javan Buchanan, and Dylan Anderson. Those four players are averaging more than 12 points per game. If teams want to slow the Broncos down, they have to slow down the whole team and not just one player.

What’s Next?

The Broncos return home on Wednesday at 7pm to play Duquesne, then head to Idaho Falls to play Saint Mary’s. These are the last two games before the gauntlet of conference play begins. After stumbling out of the gate and the rough losses in Maui, this team looks poised to make a run if the defense can travel like this and balanced scoring from the players can be maintained.

Go Broncos!

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