Las Vegas, NV (SportsNetwork.com) – Spencer Butterfield netted 14 points, including the game-winning free throws in the final minute, as the Utah State Aggies used a late surge to take down the Colorado State Rams, 73-69, in the opening round of the Mountain West Conference Tournament at the Thomas & Mack Center.<\/p>\n
Butterfield knocked down all six of his free-throw tries and added six rebounds and five assists for eighth-seeded Utah State (18-13), which will take on the tournament’s top seed San Diego State in the quarterfinals on Thursday. Preston Medlin led the team with 17 points and TeNale Roland added 14 points on 4-of-5 shooting from 3-point range.<\/p>\n
For ninth-seeded Colorado State (16-16), Dwight Smith poured in a game-high 21 points, Jon Octeus netted 19 and both players collected eight rebounds. J.J. Avila pitched in 10 points and Daniel Bejarano handed out six assists.<\/p>\n
Neither team shot greater than 37 percent from the field in the first half and the game was knotted at 31 heading into intermission.<\/p>\n
Colorado State took the lead on its first possession of the second stanza and extended its advantage to as many as 11 with only 2:40 left to play. The Aggies caught fire down the stretch however, ripping off a 16-3 run over the final 1:24. Butterfield’s game-winning free throws with 40 seconds remaining were part of an 8-of-8 showing at the foul line for Utah State in the final minute.<\/p>\n
Utah State shot 11-of-21 from 3-point range on the afternoon, while Colorado State was only 3-of-17 from beyond the arc.<\/p>\n
Final Score: Fresno State 61, Air Force 59<\/p>\n
Las Vegas, NV (SportsNetwork.com) – Alex Davis scored 12 points and knocked down the game-winning free throws in the final minute to lift the Fresno State Bulldogs to a 61-59 triumph over the Air Force Falcons in the opening round of the Mountain West Conference Tournament at the Thomas & Mack Center.<\/p>\n
Davis drained all eight of his free-throw tries for seventh-seeded Fresno State (17-15), which will play No. 2 seed New Mexico in the quarterfinals on Thursday. Tyler Johnson paced the winning effort with 19 points and 12 rebounds, while Allen Huddleston added 15 points to the mix.<\/p>\n
For 10th-seeded Air Force (12-18), Tre’ Coggins led all scorers with 20 points and Max Yon netted 15.<\/p>\n
Fresno State carried a 27-24 lead into halftime even though it shot a dreadful 27.6 percent from the field in the first half. It went an impressive 9-of-11 from the foul line and had five more field goal attempts than Air Force, which also had a poor shooting performance in the opening 20 minutes (.333).<\/p>\n
The Falcons stormed back by piecing together a 26-10 run in the second half, and they held a seemingly comfortable 56-41 lead with under six minutes remaining. However, Fresno State ended the game on a furious 20-3 run. After a Johnson 3-pointer tied the game with 1:16 left, the teams exchanged empty possessions before Davis had a 2-of-2 trip to the stripe with 12 seconds remaining. Air Force had a chance to tie on its final possession but a Coggins jumper in the waning seconds did not fall.<\/p>\n
Fresno State scored 13 points off of 12 Air Force turnovers.<\/p>\n
Final Score: Boise State 83, San Jose State 52<\/p>\n
Las Vegas, NV (SportsNetwork.com) – Derrick Marks scored 17 points to lead the Boise State Broncos to an 83-52 rout of the San Jose State Spartans in the first round of the Mountain West Tournament at the Thomas & Mack Center.<\/p>\n
Ryan Watkins added 14 points for Boise State (20-12), the sixth seed in the event. Thomas Bropleh chipped in 12 points and Igor Hadziomerovic tallied 10. The Broncos will face third-seed Nevada in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
Rashad Muhammad netted 13 points and Chris Cunningham contributed 11 for San Jose State (7-24), the 11th-seed.<\/p>\n
Boise State took a stranglehold early on, shooting 62.1 percent from the floor over the first 20 minutes, while San Jose State managed only four field goals. The Broncos led 46-14 at the break.<\/p>\n
The second half provided very little in the way of intrigue, as Boise State coasted to victory, shooting 40.7 percent from the field.<\/p>\n
Boise State had sizable scoring advantages in the paint (48-22), off of turnovers (21-6) and off the bench (39-17).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Las Vegas, NV (SportsNetwork.com) – Spencer Butterfield netted 14 points, including the game-winning free throws in the final minute, as the Utah State Aggies used a late surge to take down the Colorado State Rams, 73-69, in the opening round of the Mountain West Conference Tournament at the Thomas & Mack Center. Butterfield knocked down […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[242],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ncaa-basketball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15919\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}