What Leon Rice said after Boise State men’s basketball’s rout of Texas-Rio Grande Valley

The Boise State men’s basketball team picked up its second straight blowout win on Tuesday, defeating Texas-Rio Grande Valley 85-65 at ExtraMile Arena.

Andrew Meadow led the way for the Broncos (2-1) with 21 points, five rebounds and three assists while Javan Buchanan added 15 points, seven rebounds, three assists and two steals.

Boise State shot 49.1 percent from the floor (28 of 57) and 45.5 percent from three-point range (10 of 22) but finished 19 of 29 from the foul line (65.5 percent).

“Progress,” Boise State head coach Leon Rice said after the win. “I was really proud of our guys because that team, they went on a 17-1 run against Baylor. They were up 12 points in the first half against Baylor. They had our attention because they can get it going. You have to stop them, otherwise they are going to score a lot.”

Here are the highlights from Rice’s postgame comments.

On strong shooting start to season

“The shooters are always good shooters. What makes a good shooter is shot selection and teammates getting them better shots. Because we’ve got guys that will make them if we get each other shots, and that was our emphasis tonight. I thought we did a really nice job of that. We got good shots and we put a lot of foul pressure on the defense.

“If you settle for a bad shot against them, they turn it into points on the other end. If you turn it over, (same thing). I mean, you saw that tonight. We’d have a break, miss a lay-in, boom, three on the other end. You turn it over, bucket on the other end. They can run, and they can run well. So if you’re running bad offense and just jacking it, they’re going to rebound and run.”

On defensive effort

“I thought our defense got better from the last game. Our transition was better, we protected the paint a little bit better. Now, tons of room for growth, but there were some real positives.”

On missed free throws

“I think we’re going to be a great free throw shooting team, and we left so many points on the board. We scored 85 and I think we missed three front-ends. That would’ve been 100 (points) when you miss that many free throws.

“I’m not concerned about the free throws because I know it was … an anomaly. It looked like that ball was a little bouncy or something, I don’t know. It seems like it was bouncing out for us.”