WBB Preview: Utah State Hosts Stout Boise State Team
The Aggies are set for a track meet on Wednesday night as they host the Boise State Broncos in their third Mountain West game of the year. The Broncos already play fairly fast, averaging 72.3 possessions per game, but Utah State’s frenetic play style could speed them up even more.
It's a three-team race in the Mountain West behind UNLV, and Boise State is one of those teams, meaning that Utah State will have played three of the league's best four teams to open its league slate, suffering losses to other contenders in Colorado State and Wyoming.
Abby Muse is Boise State’s all-conference caliber big, another familiar sight for the Aggies, and guards Natalie Pasco, Mary Kay Naro, Tatum Thompson, Mya Hansen, and Dani Baynes split up other duties in the backcourt. Boise State gets its offensive production from wherever it can get it, and that varies from game to game. The Broncos have had six different scoring leaders in their 16 games: Elodie Lalotte, Taryn Gardner, Thompson, Libby Hutton, Pasco, Muse and Hansen have each taken a turn leading the team in scoring.
Defensively, the Broncos are much more predictable, but it doesn’t make them easier to plan for. The Broncos boast one of the top defensive efforts in the conference, anchored by Muse in the frontcourt with Thompson causing problems wherever she goes. Naro and Bayes each average 1.1 steals per game, as well.
In the frontcourt, defensive powerhouses Muse and Gracie Johnson will face off. Johnson will have some much-needed help from Taliyah Logwood and Jamisyn Heaton, and the Aggies will need big games from their guards to help Cheyenne Stubbs to have a chance against the Broncos. Boise State is 11-5 but has been susceptible recently, losing three of its past four games. The Aggies are even colder, though, and have a 1-13 record with an 11-game losing streak.
Players To Know
Abby Muse: Muse is in the upper echelon of the conference’s bigs, and while she’s not quite on Allyson Fertig’s level, she is undoubtedly in the top tier. Muse was on last year's Mountain West All-Defensive team and looks like a prime candidate to find herself on this year’s too, using her 6-3 frame to contest shots, grab rebounds and crowd passing lanes. She’s currently leading the team in rebounds, and the entire conference in blocks.
Despite the stellar year she’s having, her performance has actually declined a bit from 2023-24. She is in a slump across the board this year, and all her numbers have slipped, except for assists, which she has increased slightly. Her scoring has dropped drastically from her career high of 10.2 points per game in 2021-2022, and has even declined slightly from last year’s average of 7.5. She’s currently recording 5.9 points, 6.7 rebounds, 2.3 blocks and 1.9 assists per game
She still has all the high-end ability, though, and Utah State doesn’t want to be around when she puts it together. Her season highs include 19 points against North Dakota, 12 rebounds against UC Riverside and Air Force, five assists against Weber State, three steals against Colorado and Utah Tech and seven blocks against Colorado and UC Riverside.
One clue as to how Utah State might handle her is how it handled Wyoming’s Fertig. The Aggies fared well against Fertig and held her below her season averages in points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks. With Johnson, Logwood, Heaton and Samiana Suguturaga, the Aggies are well-equipped to handle tough bigs, so long as they stay out of foul trouble. Johnson and Logwood both found themselves on the wrong side of the whistle against the Pokes, which allowed Fertig to settle in late.
Other than her 12-rebound performance against the Falcons, Muse has been struggling lately. Since starting conference play, she’s averaging 4.0 points, 7.0 rebounds (with a 12-rebound outlier), 1.3 assists and 1.0 blocks per game. She’s 5 of 15 from the field in that stretch, and was 0 for 4 with three turnovers in her last game, a tight loss to UNLV. If this is the game that she gets back on track, she could really hurt the Aggies. But, even if she continues to struggle, the Broncos have plenty of other weapons to try.
Mary Kay Naro: For someone averaging under five points a game for the second year in a row, Kay Naro is shockingly impactful for Boise State, specifically as a facilitator, establishing herself as a low-scoring cornerstone of the team over her extended tenure. The fifth-year senior is the main distributor on the Bronco offense, leading her team by a wide margin in assists and checking in at No. 3 on the conference leaderboard. Last year, with 142 dimes, she became the second Bronco ever to record 100 assists in four straight seasons, and is on pace to add a fifth season this year. The 5-2 guard already has 60 assists in 16 games, with at least 15 more to play.
Last season, she achieved an assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.1, and this year she's not far behind at 2.0. Granted, Utah State's press-heavy defense has caused problems for plenty of guards this season, and could disrupt her flow as a steady distributor.
She can score – she had 11 points against San Francisco earlier this year, has scored nine twice, and dropped eight against Air Force – but she’s at her best when finding teammates to feed. She had 11 assists and zero points in a 74-65 win over Furman and is averaging 3.3 points and 4.0 assists per conference game. That's not too far from her full-season line, which sees her averaging 3.9 points, 3.8 assists, 3.4 rebounds and 1.1 steals per contest.
Tatum Thompson: Another piece of the Pasco-Naro-Thompson trio, where Pasco is the scorer of the bunch and Naro is the distributor, Thompson has found herself playing the part of the pesky and reliable defender. She wreaks havoc on the perimeter, but with a 6-1 silhouette, she can crash into the paint and become a major obstacle there as well.
She is leading the team in steals and is second in rebounds and blocks, following only Muse. She's also second on the team in scoring, averaging 10.1 points, 4.8 rebounds, 1.3 assists, 1.2 steals and 1.0 blocks per game. And, while Muse and Naro are both in their fifth and final seasons with the program, Thompson is only a junior, slated to lead the team into the future alongside Pasco and fellow classmate Bayes.
Her offensive output has been sporadic, which might be the only thing holding her back. She had as many as 19 points against UCR, but in her last game had only two points, shooting 41.5 percent from the field and 21.9 percent from distance.
Natalie Pasco: Pasco was named to the 2023-2024 All-Mountain West team and is the centerpiece of the Boise State offense, fitting nicely between Naro and Muse to elevate the offense. She's leading the team in scoring with 11.1 points per game, which isn’t an explosive number (and puts her at 13th in the conference in scoring), but she does have explosive scoring abilities in her arsenal. She dropped 20 against Furman and has four 15-plus scoring nights this year, including back-to-back 18-point showings against Weber State and Illinois State, and 10 double-digit performances.
Now in her third year in head coach Gordy Presnell’s system, she’s a leader on the court, but her play style gives her an added edge as a teammate. She plays off her teammate’s strengths to maximize her own game, but she also gives it back, using her scoring ability to open up the floor for other Broncos who aren't quite so likely to win in one-on-one matchups. She’s been slotted into more of a pure scorer role because she can be trusted to hit at all three levels, shooting 47.8 percent from the field and 43.1 percent from three, but she's not an unwilling passer or defender, despite her relatively paltry averages, kicking in 1.1 rebounds, 0.8 assists and 0.4 steals per game.
It is notable, especially ahead of this matchup, that Pasco has been slumping in Mountain West play. She finished with only two points against Air Force, and is averaging just 7.0 points and 1.0 rebounds per league game, ceding much of the scoring duty to Hansen (12.7 PPG in the MWC) and Bayes (8.7 PPG). She fouled out against UNLV in her last game, and logged nine points with nothing else to fill the box score.