Mountain West Basketball: Preseason power rankings for 2023-24 season
. . . Broncos . 6. team. 502
The next five teams in this power ranking are in their own tier and to be quite frank, can be situated in any order. Expect them to flip and flop often during the 2023-24 season.
Leon Rice’s Boise State Broncos are coming off another great season, despite the loss of Emmanuel Akot in the preceding offseason. After going 23-8 in the regular season, Boise State earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, where the program fell to Northwestern.
An encore won’t be easy. Among the biggest losses for Boise State was guard Marcus Shaver Jr., one of three to exhaust their eligibility. Three players also left in the transfer portal.
There is some experience coming back, though, and depth should not be a concern for this team. There are several transfers coming in from major programs and a few of its building blocks have spent a half-decade in the college ranks.
All-Mountain West First Team forward Tyson Degenhart should be one of the best players in the conference once again. He’ll somehow have an even bigger role after a season that saw him average 14.1 points (which led the team) and 5.3 rebounds per game.
Coach’s son Max Rice is also back for another season, his sixth at Boise State. He finished a tick behind Degenhart in scoring last season, but proved to be a lethal shooter with 40.9 percent accuracy from three.
There are some intriguing transfers, including former Kansas forward Cameron Martin and former St. John’s forward O’Mar Stanley, though the best among them is reigning Big West Freshman of the Year Roddie Anderson III, who arrives from UC San Diego. Wing Chibuzo Agbo was solid in his first season after transferring from Texas Tech, while Emmanuel Ugbo arrives on the scene after getting some professional experience in Germany.
The pieces are there for the Broncos to make a run at the NCAA Tournament again. Can the team replace the outgoing production and make it all work, though? That remains to be seen.