The WSU Cougars will travel to Boise for a nationally televised game against the Mountain West’s premiere team, the Boise State Broncos.
The Cougs (7-2) are coming off a key road win against Nevada, their first Quad one victory of the season. The Broncos (6-2) are coming off a win over Utah Tech.
The game is played at a “neutral” site arena but is only about a mile from Boise State’s campus.
The Cougars will hope to get recent WCC Player of the Week Cedric Coward back in action after the senior has missed the past three games with an injury. The Cougs are also likely to be without last year’s Idaho High School Gatorade Player of the Year Kase Wynott, who suffered an injury in the Cougar’s loss to Southern Methodist University.
WSU has climbed to No. 70 in the Net Rankings and No. 81 in KenPom.
Meanwhile, BSU is ranked No. 37 in the Net Rankings and No. 44 in KenPom.
The Cougs and Broncos are both strong shooting teams, with WSU hitting 35% of their threes and BSU making 32% of theirs. However, the Cougs attempt 28 threes per game, as opposed to the Broncos who attempt 19 per game.
Wazzu will need to clean up their turnovers if they want to have a chance against Boise State. The Cougs are averaging 15 turnovers per game, as opposed to the Broncos who average 10.4 per game. The turnover differential could be a key factor if Boise State is able to build a lead.
“We got a heck of a battle against those guys, they’re playing really good ball, got a veteran team,” said David Riley.
The Broncos are led by forward Tyson Degenhart. The six-foot, eight-inch senior from Spokane, Washington, has been putting together an impressive start to the season. He is averaging 17 points per game and six rebounds per game, a dominating presence in the paint. If Coward can play, he will likely be tasked to hold Degenhart down.
Javan Buchanan is the Broncos‘ sharpshooter. The junior forward transferred from Indiana Wesleyan and is so far making 43% of his three-point attempts. Buchanan is averaging 13.6 points despite only averaging 21.6 minutes.
Other players to watch will be Andrew Meadow and Alvaro Cardenas. Meadow is a sophomore forward who came off the bench for the Broncos last year. This year he has seen an increased role, with 10.8 points per game and nine steals. Cardenas is a senior guard who transferred from San Jose State. He leads the team with 47 assists, 12 steals and averages 9.9 points per game.
