What Boise State’s Leon Rice said about defensive victory over New Mexico

The Boise State men’s basketball team evened its Mountain West record on Tuesday with a 62-53 home victory over New Mexico.

The Broncos shot just 20 of 56 (36 percent) from the field and 6 of 30 (20 percent) from beyond the arc but held the Lobos to 31 percent shooting. Boise State missed its first 11 field goal attempts, including an 0 for 9 start from long range.

“It was a rock fight,” Broncos head coach Leon Rice said. “Both teams were really strong defensively, I thought.

“What a great defensive effort. Everybody contributed.”

Freshman Spencer Ahrens came off the bench to lead the Broncos (9-4, 1-1) with 12 points and eight rebounds. Pearson Carmichael and Drew Fielder added 11 points apiece while Aginaldo Neto had 10 points.

Tomislav Buljan paced New Mexico (10-3, 1-1) with 16 points and 10 rebounds.

The Lobos, who had won seven straight games entering ExtraMile Arena, were held to a season-low 53 points.

Here are the highlights from Rice’s postgame comments.

On poor starts to both halves

“The thing that we did a good job of is we had two bad starts at the start of the first half and the start of the second half, and we weathered those storms. I mean, we could’ve been down 20 with as bad as those were.”

On Ahrens’ big game

“I think the key to the game was Spencer off the bench. I’m so proud of him because he’s been getting better and better and better because of the work he’s doing in practice. I knew that would show up on the floor. I thought he did a terrific job, and we need his offense. But he got eight rebounds, he blocked some shots, he was around the ball. He was just super aggressive.”

On foul shooting woes

“It was a hard-fought game, and the thing that we’ve got to fix … like I always say, two things that don’t last long are teams that can’t shoot free throws and dogs that chase cars. Free throws don’t win you all the games, but they win you all the close ones. We could’ve been up 13 or 15 if we just make those free throws. We went on a little tear there between the five and three minute mark where we’d just miss front ends, and we had good shooters at the line. That’s where I told the guys ‘Just don’t let it get in your head.’ I’ve got great shooters, just get up and shoot it.”