What Leon Rice said after Boise State men’s basketball’s stunning loss to Division II Hawaii Pacific

‘We let them get comfortable … then we played desperate,’ Rice said

Boise State Broncos head coach Leon Rice. / Orlando Ramirez-Imagn Images

The Boise State men’s basketball team opened the 2025-26 season on Monday with a shocking 79-78 home loss to Division II Hawaii Pacific. 

The Sharks finished 15-14 overall a season ago with a 10-10 record in PacWest play.

Boise State, meanwhile, nearly made last year’s NCAA Tournament and was picked to finish third in the 2025-26 Mountain West preseason poll. 

“We didn’t set a tone,” Broncos head coach Leon Rice said after the loss. “This team is going to have to play with an edge, and we came off a really good (exhibition) game where we played with a big edge. And our teams always do that, they play with a great edge.

“A lot to learn from this one. It’s a painful lesson and a painful pill to swallow on the first night, but I guess this is what this team needed.” 

Here are the highlights from Rice’s postgame press conference.

On what went wrong

“We let them get comfortable and we let them make threes and we let them do what they wanted to do to take the game to us. Then we played desperate.

“This day and age, there’s just too many good players out there. It doesn’t matter who you show up against. If you don’t play a good game and a hard game and a tough game, they’ll beat you. Simple as that. It doesn’t matter who you play, and that showed tonight.”

On rotations

“I’d have some guys playing good offensively but not defensively. Some guys were playing good defensively but not offensively. When you’re playing, trying to figure out 10 guys, it’s hard to get the right combinations a little bit.

“The thing that will be crystal clear and these guys will understand is the right combination will start with who can guard, who’s going to be the toughest guy out there on the floor, and that’s the guys that are going to play. Sometimes guys get a little comfortable and get a little — not rest on their laurels — but ‘Well I’ve done this before, so I deserve to play.’ That has nothing to do with it. It’s an everyday thing.”

On defensive breakdowns

“We just let guys stare us down and shoot threes. Then they got comfortable and were like ‘Oh, we can do this all night.’ And that’s what they did.”

On responding to adversity

“We’ve responded to adversity — the little bit that we’ve faced so far this year. But you got under the lights and didn’t respond to any adversity. We really came unglued a little bit.” 

On Hawaii Pacific 

“You’ve got to give Hawaii Pacific a lot of credit. They made tough shots, they dictated everything that we did. They dictated the game, they did whatever they wanted. They out-physicaled us and we just played frustrated.”

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