Stunning Upset in 5A Boys Basketball Receives No Press

What with the Olympics underway and Boise State hosting Nevada in a first place battle for the Mountain West lead, one can understand why the most stunning upset of the year in 5A boys basketball has gone pretty much unnoticed! Are you kidding me?

The Boise Braves came into last nights 5A District Tournament as the #1 seed and the  #1 team in the state at 19-1. Their opponent was 9-13 Centennial a team Boise beat 56-33 during the regular season. This was a miss-match on paper and I wondered why I had felt compelled to chose this game to broadcast on 630 The Fan.

Centennial slowed the game down, took the air out of the ball extending every possession until the perfect shot presented itself.

Since there is no shot clock in boys basketball the game moved quickly and after three quarters Boise led as expected but by the unlikely margin of one point, 29-28.

The slow down, just stay with Boise mentality had paid off....now the game was down to just 8 minutes and Centennial suddenly picked up the pace.

A pair of three point shots from Jon Hansen off the bench gave the Patriots their first lead of the night and down the stretch Parker Martens (17pts) hit six straight free throws and 8 of 9 in the final stanza to seal a 50-42 Centennial upset of #1 Boise.

Today no real mention of the game anywhere in the news paper, a final score yes but this game story was far more than just a final score.

Not only did #1 Boise lose a game they also lost arguably their top two players to injury. Both Paul Pennington and Lucas Centeno went down with injuries in the fourth quarter. Both players were helped off the court and neither could put any weight on their injured leg as they were led to the locker room. The injuries occurred within minutes of one another and in fact the medical staff was still in the locker room tending to Pennington when they ran back to the court to check on Centeno.

Both are questionable for Saturdays loser-out game against Meridian.

Meantime Centennial now 10-13 on the year and all of a sudden a giant killer is one win from the District championship game and a state tournament berth. The Patriots will play Mountain View Saturday 6 p.m. at Rocky Mountain. The other semi final to follow will be Borah vs. Rocky Mountain.

Centennials win was a mind boggling upset but not as mind boggling as to why the outcome deserved just a final score on 6B of  the states biggest newspaper sports section, rather than the headline the result screamed for: "Stunning Patriot Upset."