Wildcats fall to Broncos

OGDEN — Weber State's season just keeps getting stranger.

Wildcats coach Joe Cravens sent a message to his team — his starters in particular — by benching his first five players and starting five bench players Saturday. The message, he hoped, was that if you expect to be on the floor, you'd better play with a sense of urgency.

The message may have been delivered and received, but the desired results are still in translation as Weber State played sloppily for extended stretches and fell to Boise State, 74-66, in the Dee Events Center.

"We made too many mistakes to win," Cravens said after his team lost its third straight game. "We just are not very smart right now, and we're not making a lot of shots."

A bad combination against a team hungry for a win. Boise State lost to the Wildcats (3-3) two weeks ago and was thumped two nights earlier at Idaho State.

The Broncos (3-2) came out firing away from outside and found success at the 3-point line as they hit a dozen shots from beyond the arc. Weber State, on the other hand, struggled offensively as the new starting five scored just one point in the first four minutes before Cravens finally let his regular starters check into the game.

The Wildcats eventually settled into a rhythm and held a 15-12 lead midway through the first half, but they couldn't sustain that momentum. Boise State, leading 36-32 at the break, jumped all over the Wildcats in the second half as Kenny Wilson tossed in six 3-pointers in the game and led all scorers with 19 points.

Weber State point guard Nick Covington paced the Wildcats with 18 points on 5-of-11 shooting. Little else went right for the Wildcats, though.

Forwards David Patten, Coric Riggs and Nedim Pajevic combined to shoot just 7-of-25 as Weber State shot less than 35 percent as a team for the third straight game.

"I hate to overanalyze it," Cravens said, "but they shot it in a bunch and we didn't."

The Broncos shot 45.8 percent, including a 52-percent effort in the second half, to keep the Wildcats at bay despite a handful of spirited rallies that didn't quite have enough in them to push WSU ahead.

After falling behind by as many as 15, the Wildcats chipped away and got it down to a 7-point margin with 11 minutes to play on a Patten offensive rebound putback. But BSU quickly pushed it's lead back to a dozen points only to see the 'Cats rally again and trim it to five points on a Covington jumper with seven minutes left.

That was as close as Weber State could get, though, as Boise State held on down the stretch.

Cravens will try to right the Wildcats ship Tuesday when WSU visits Utah Valley State.

---

E-mail: jeborn@desnews.com