Monday-Tuesday, March 24-25, 2008.

Boise State was cool, calm and collected as it walked out to the center circle for the opening tip in its first round NCAA Tournament game against Louisville Friday night. It was the only time the Broncos would look that way. In the first two minutes, Reggie Larry bricked a three, Matt Nelson threw a pass into row 2, Nelson clanged a hook, and Tyler Tiedeman had a dribble go off his knee and out-of-bounds. A couple minutes later, the Cardinals led 10-1, and the hole was too big for BSU, who would lose 79-61 in Birmingham. As distasteful as an 18-point loss in the Big Dance was, the Broncos are thankful they’re not Oklahoma. The Sooners were pummeled by Louisville in the second round yesterday, 78-48.

To Nelson’s credit, he would recover to lead the Broncos with 17 points and seven rebounds in his final game. He kept his emotions in check and played as confidently against Cardinal star David Padgett as one can when he got the chance in the second half. Reggie Larry drew a lot of attention from the Cards but still managed 14 points and seven boards in his finale. Larry also contributed a couple highlight reel dunks. It was a defensive clinic by Louisville, though. The Cardinals were in the face of virtually every Bronco who touched the ball near the three-point line. Tyler Tiedeman made two uncontested treys but missed four others. And Matt Bauscher was unable to get the clean looks he got at the WAC Tournament and went 0-for-3.

A couple box score lines bucked some of the theories surrounding this game going in. BSU was destined to get pounded on the boards, yet the Broncos out-rebounded the Cardinals by four and pulled down 11 offensive boards to Louisville’s seven. And BSU did manage to shoot 48 percent against a team that holds opponents to 38 percent. On a lot of nights that’s good enough to win. But the lights-out performance by Louisville on offense negated any chance that those stats would be meaningful. So the Broncos end the season at 25-9 with a school record for victories and a WAC title. It’s something to build on, and build is what BSU needs to do with the losses of Nelson, Larry, Tiedeman and Bauscher.

Boise State turnovers and rebounding gave TCU all the shots it wanted yesterday, and the Horned Frogs took advantage in an 85-56 demolition of the Broncos in the second round of the Women’s NIT. TCU outboarded the smaller Broncos by 16 and feasted on their season-high 26 turnovers to earn 22 more field goal attempts than BSU and quickly turn this Easter parade into a laugher. But, as attention turns to next season, BSU returns everybody but seniors Jackie Lee and Amanda Stewart and are set to unveil a loaded group of five redshirts, most of whom are post players.

Fans got a healthy look at Boise State’s new “Q” formation, a derivative of Nevada’s “Pistol” offense, during the Broncos’ first spring scrimmage Friday. But onlookers were far more interested with how the quarterbacks look after the ball was snapped in that modified shotgun set. Senior Bush Hamdan had a steady day, while junior Nick Lomax and sophomore Michael Coughlin each fumbled their very first snaps of the spring. Kellen Moore, the redshirt freshman, did not disappoint, though. He was 10-of-14 for 114 yards and a touchdown and moved the offense, making things happen on fourth down.

At the outset, Moore was working with the third string and going against the threes on defense, so it was hard to tell what to make of it. Even then, you could see that the southpaw was a pinpoint passer—and that the offense was coming naturally to him. Moore perfectly executed a screen to Jarvis Hodge, then handed to Hodge on a fourth-and-three, with the sophomore taking it 43 yards down to the six. Moore scrambled for a touchdown on the next play. When he got a chance to operate with the first team, Moore zipped a tight 50-yard spiral to Titus Young. And on another fourth down, it was another perfect screen that saw Young waltz in with a 14-yard touchdown. The Broncos’ next scrimmage is a week from Friday at a site to be determined.

You can’t think of a cliché much better than, “They couldn’t have scripted it any better,” when looking at the Idaho Steelheads’ sweep of Stockton. The Steelheads were coming off a demoralizing 1-5 road trip when they returned to Qwest Arena last Wednesday. So what do they do? They sandwich a couple shutouts around a hard-fought 3-2 win Friday to maintain a tie with Victoria atop the ECHL West Division. Rookie forward Colin Sinclair gained the spotlight in the series, scoring the game-winning goal with 23 seconds left Friday and tallying again Saturday. That’s two goals in two games for Sinclair after he had gone 28 games without one.

Back to hoops: the Idaho Stampede has one of those rare two-game losing streaks after falling twice at Anaheim over the weekend. The Stampede are still re-tooling themselves in the paint after the NBA call-ups of Lance Allred and Mouhamed Sene, and two locals continue to play a role. Jason Ellis led the Stamps with 17 points Friday, while Cory Violette’s paint responsibilities increased Saturday, and he scored 18 points (Roberto Bergersen led the team with 23). Newly re-signed post man Eric Chenowith played just a combined nine minutes in the two games. The Stampede’s lead in the D-League West Division is down to one game now thanks to the L.A. D-Fenders win over Albuquerque yesterday.

This might be the hire that defines Rob Spear’s tenure as athletic director at the University of Idaho. There have been some tough ones, but Don Verlin looks like a good one. Verlin was hired Friday as the Vandals’ new men’s basketball coach. I remember this point being made when Verlin was candidate after the firing of Leonard Perry two years ago: that he knows how to recruit good talent to an out-of-the-way WAC school and make it work. Verlin will be introduced at a press conference tonight in Moscow.

Boise State has only its second wrestling All-American in the last six years, as Centennial High grad Kirk Smith finished eighth at the NCAA Championships Saturday in St. Louis. Smith is the first true freshman ever to garner All-America honors at BSU. The meet otherwise didn’t go quite as well as coach Greg Randall drew it up, but the Broncos still ended with a Top 25 finish (24th).
Meanwhile, the Boise State Spring Break Tennis Invitational was won by the host Bronco men with wins over Georgia State, Yale and Wichita State. And the BSU gymnastics teams took a narrow win over cal Friday night at Taco Bell Arena, with WAC Championships coming up this week.

This Day In Sports…March 24, 1980:

Darrell Griffith and the “Doctors of Dunk” present Louisville coach Denny Crum with the first of his two national championships as the Cardinals beat UCLA in the NCAA Tournament final, 59-54. For the Bruins, it was the first trip to the title game since the retirement of John Wooden five years earlier. And it was the second stop in Larry Brown’s coaching odyssey.

(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment Sunday nights at 10:30PM on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra and anchors five sports segments each weekday on 1350 KTIK/The Ticket. He also handles color commentary on KTVB’s telecasts of Boise State football.)