Las Vegas, NV (SportsNetwork.com) – Wyoming is on the brink of sneaking into the NCAA Tournament as the Cowboys knocked off No. 25 Boise State in overtime 71-66 in the semifinals of the Mountain West Conference Tournament.<\/p>\n
Josh Adams poured in a game-high 27 points and Larry Nance Jr. added 20 for the fourth-seeded Cowboys (24-9), who advanced to take on San Diego State in Saturday’s final.<\/p>\n
Derrick Marks and Nick Duncan contributed 17 and 11 points, respectively, for the MWC regular-season champion Broncos.<\/p>\n
Wyoming won the lone regular season meeting against Boise State on Jan. 10, and the Broncos bounced back with a 15-1 stretch heading into Friday’s rematch.<\/p>\n
That type of dominance in a competitive conference seemingly has Boise State (25-8) as a lock for an at-large bid in the NCAA Tournament, but its fate is in the hands of the selection committee.<\/p>\n
“It’s kind of a strange feeling not to have the fate in your hands anymore,” Boise State’s Robert Heyer said. “We built a resume this season. We’re turning that in right now. Unfortunately we would have liked to have gotten an automatic bid.”<\/p>\n
Wyoming missed three free throws after going in front 55-50 with 2 1\/2 minutes remaining in regulation, and a Heyer 3-pointer and two Igor Hadziomerovic tied things heading into the final minute.<\/p>\n
After Adams made two free throws with 29.6 seconds left, James Webb III tipped in a Marks miss for a 57-57 game, giving the Cowboys one final shot at the end of regulation.<\/p>\n
Adams rose from just inside the arc on the right side and was short at the buzzer, but Wyoming recovered by controlling the entire extra session.<\/p>\n
Derek Cooke Jr.’s three-point play broke a 60-60 tie, and Jason McManamen banked in a deep 3-pointer for a 66-62 lead inside the final minute.<\/p>\n
“I did not call bank, but I heard a couple guys on the bench call bank after I shot it,” joked McManamen. “That counts.”<\/p>\n
Marks, the MWC Player of the Year, turned it over on Boise State’s next possession, and the Cowboys finished off their upset at the foul line.<\/p>\n
Boise State made seven 3-pointers in the first half and was on top 38-26 before Wyoming rattled off 10 consecutive points before the break.<\/p>\n
Adams scored seven of his 20 first-half points over the final two minutes, including a thunderous dunk and a three-point play in the final seconds.<\/p>\n
The Cowboys took their first lead at 42-41 on a Nance dunk just over four minutes into the second half, and they stayed in front until a late drought.<\/p>\n
Game Notes<\/p>\n
Wyoming has not reached the NCAA Tournament since 2002 … Boise State shot 3- of-14 (21.4 percent) from 3-point range after halftime … Wyoming shot 46 percent from the field.<\/p>\n
Final Score: San Diego State 56, Colorado State 43<\/p>\n
Las Vegas, NV (SportsNetwork.com) – Aqeel Quinn and Winston Shepard each scored 16 points, and San Diego State shut down Colorado State 56-43 in the semifinals of the Mountain West Conference Tournament<\/p>\n
Both programs have NCAA Tournament-worthy resumes, but only SDSU (27-7) controls its own fate with a win against Wyoming in Saturday’s final.<\/p>\n
Dwayne Polee II chipped in 12 points for the second-seeded Aztecs, who held the opposition 30 points below its season average.<\/p>\n
The third-seeded Rams (27-6) sorely missed leading scorer J.J. Avila after the senior forward suffered an ankle injury in the quarterfinals against Fresno State. Stanton Kidd scored 10 points for a team that shot just 32.1 percent from the floor.<\/p>\n
The Aztecs led 24-18 at the break and went ahead by as many as 14 when Shepard threw down a dunk for a 41-27 cushion midway through the second half.<\/p>\n
The closest the Rams got from there was seven, and SDSU responded with a seven straight points — five from Quinn — to gain some breathing room.<\/p>\n
San Diego State played for the MWC championship last year and lost to New Mexico.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Las Vegas, NV (SportsNetwork.com) – Wyoming is on the brink of sneaking into the NCAA Tournament as the Cowboys knocked off No. 25 Boise State in overtime 71-66 in the semifinals of the Mountain West Conference Tournament. Josh Adams poured in a game-high 27 points and Larry Nance Jr. added 20 for the fourth-seeded Cowboys […]<\/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-30781","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\/30781","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=30781"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30783,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30781\/revisions\/30783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}