Mountain West Basketball: Way-too-early 2020-21 power rankings
By John Vaccaro
7. Boise State
Boise State was one of the schools in the conference who wasn’t hurt too badly by players transferring, but their roster has still been depleted. They lost a huge chunk of their squad to graduation, including the Mountain West’s all-time leader in career 3s, Justinian Jessup, and RJ Williams. Then they lost their leading scorer when Derrick Alston Jr declared for the draft.
These departures represent a massive chunk of Boise State’s scoring from last season and will be unbelievably difficult to replace. However, I think they’ll be able to replace enough of it to keep themselves in the middle of the pack in this conference.
Abu Kigab is still around and had some big performances for the Broncos last year. MLaden Armus will also be available for the Broncos after sitting out a year and should strengthen their frontcourt in the absence of Williams. Emmanuel Akot will also be able to fill some of the void being left in Boise after sitting out his year. Their most recent reported addition is JUCO transfer Lukas Milner, who should be able to slide right into their lineup.
Boise State was alway facing an uphill battle to stay at the same level for next season once Alston decided to move on. However, they have set themselves up nicely to keep themselves competitive and possibly build themselves back up for a run the following year.