What head coach Leon Rice said about Boise State’s overtime home loss to UNLV

The Boise State men’s basketball team jumped out to a 32-9 first-half lead in Friday’s Mountain West home game against UNLV but fell apart down the stretch to suffer an 86-83 overtime loss.

“When you look at the film, there will be 100 little plays in a game like this that you could’ve made,” Broncos head coach Leon Rice said. “They made some athletic plays against us again that really hurt us.”

The Rebels (13-12, 8-6) also defeated Boise State (15-10, 7-7) in overtime earlier this season, 89-85.

Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn netted a career-high 36 points to lead the Rebels. Tyrin Jones added 12 points, five rebounds and four blocks off the bench.

Drew Fielder led Boise State with 27 points and six rebounds.

Here are the highlights from Rice’s postgame comments.

On where it got away

“In that first half, we had a chance to kind of even bury them. It seems like they played with a little bit more intensity in that gap at the end of the first half and got it back to (an 11-point deficit) instead of us moving it back to 20. You go into half up 20, it’s a little bit different. I think that was a crucial stretch.

“They got cooking, and we couldn’t make them miss.”

On defending Gibbs-Lawhorn

“He sees that ball go in … I thought a crucial play was when AG (Neto) fouled him in the corner and he gets those three free throws, and that kind of opened up the floodgate for him.”

On end-of-game offensive struggles

“At that point of the game, they were heating us up defensively. We got some free throws here and there, but they weren’t in the bonus at a critical time. We have a great post-up, get the ball to (Javan Buchanan), and then they call the foul when he’s got the lane and you’re just like ‘Hold your whistle one second there and let him lay it in!’ They did a good job of battling our posts because they weren’t close to the bonus so they didn’t care if they fouled.

“We have to be able to get to the free throw line at that time when we are struggling. That’s usually what we do. But we drove a few times and came up with nothing.”

On bouncing back against Utah State

“Our guys always respond. They’re disappointed and heartbroken. That was a tough one because we played great at the start of that game and we had some great minutes … and boom, it turned quick at the end down the stretch.”