Mountain West roundup: Spartans finally win; Nance hurts knee
San Diego State held serve at home, San Jose State finally got a win and Boise State scored an impressive road victory.
Yet the most significant thing that happened on a busy Tuesday night in the Mountain West Conference may have been an injury in Laramie, Wyo.
Larry Nance Jr., far and away the most talented player for Wyoming, left the Cowboys 72-66 win over Fresno State with an apparent right knee injury.
The extent of the injury won’t be known until an MRI on Wednesday, but initial indications aren’t promising.
“It doesn’t look good,” Wyoming coach Larry Shyatt told Robert Gagliardi of WyoSports.
The loss of Nance for an extended period of time would be a devastating blow for a Cowboys team that is now 8-5 and alone in fourth place in the league.
Shyatt’s brand of basketball has teams fearful of drawing Wyoming in the league tournament next month, but the Cowboys would be a little less frightening without Nance.
San Diego State rolled to a 60-45 home win over Utah State to remain atop the league. The offensively challenged Aztecs got a boost from Matt Shrigley, who scored a career-high 15 points.
Up in Reno, UNR’s freefall continued with a disheartening 66-64 loss to San Jose State. It was the first conference win for the Spartans, who had lost 13 straight games to open Mountain West play.
Jalen James had his jumper blocked with three seconds remaining before gathering the ball and hitting a jumper on his second attempt to lift San Jose State to the victory.
Boise State hit 13 3-pointers as a team in an 84-72 win over Colorado State in Fort Collins.
Anthony Drmic had 19 points and Thomas Bropleh added 18 points in the victory.
UNLV and New Mexico have the stage to themselves on Wednesday night at the Lobos look for revenge at the Thomas & Mack Center.
The Rebels earned a 76-73 road win last month. The rematch airs on ESPN2 (Cox Cable 31) at 8 p.m.
