What head coach Leon Rice said after Boise State’s blowout win over Wyoming

The Boise State men’s basketball team showed no lingering effects from Saturday’s heartbreaking loss to No. 22 Utah State in Tuesday night’s Mountain West Conference game against Wyoming.

The Broncos (13-5, 5-2) raced out to a 50-21 halftime lead in a 96-55 bludgeoning of Wyoming (9-8, 2-4) at ExtraMile Arena.

“What a great response,” Boise State head coach Leon Rice said after the rout. “Because (the Utah State loss) was hard. Everybody was down, and I thought our staff did an amazing job with that, and the players. And that was a perfect response.”

Andrew Meadow led the Broncos with 18 points while Julian Bowie added a career-high 16 points off the bench, hitting 5 of 6 attempts from 3-point land.

Boise State shot 58.5 percent overall (31 of 53) and 50 percent from long range (13 of 26).

Here are the highlights from Rice’s postgame radio interview.

On improving defensively with Emmanuel Ugbo making his first career start

“We’re getting better defensively. Tonight … there was obviously an adjustment in the starting lineup, and the reason I made that is because Emmanuel has been a good, good defender. And he did a great job tonight because he covers so much ground and makes it hard on the offense.

“I’m so happy for him. When guys don’t have the circumstances they won’t, don’t get the minutes they want … they’re showing up every day positive they’re going to get their break, and he got the break. He didn’t get it because of just attitude; he got it because of attitude, effort, consistency and toughness."

On having five players score in double figures

“There were so many efficient offensive guys out there. Andrew had 18 points off seven shots. Julian had 16 points off seven shots. It was a great experience for Julian and Chris (Lockett Jr.) and those guys to be running the team.”

On playing a 20-game Mountain West schedule

“This is the first time it’s ever been 20, and league is a grind. Years ago, it used to be 14. Then it went 16, 18, and 20 games now is how many we play, and that is a grind. Because we played Saturday, you travel home, you’ve got tons of film. You’ve got lots for these guys, so you try to compress it and get it all in without wearing them out so they’re fresh. Because being fresh and excited is the most important thing. The scouting report doesn’t matter if you’re not excited to play and ready to go, and we had a team that was excited to play and ready to go tonight.”

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