The Mountain West was already aware of senior guard Alvaro Cardenas, having had to face him for the past three years when he was with San Jose State.
The Mountain West was unaware of the damage Cardenas could inflict when playing for one of the top teams in the conference.
They know now. Cardenas dished out a career-high 12 assists en route to a double-double as Boise State (9-3, 1-0 Mountain West) defeated Air Force (3-9, 0-1) 77-59 on Saturday at ExtraMile Arena.
“Good googly moogly. I mean, this guy is just crazy, right?” senior forward O’Mar Stanley said about Cardenas.
Stanley was on the receiving end of multiple Cardenas assists on Saturday afternoon, including several alley-oop dunks. Stanley ended the night with 15 points, one of four Broncos in double-digit scoring.
And it wasn’t just the set-ups to Stanley that had the crowd ooh’ing and ahh’ing.
At one point in the second half, he won a 50-50 battle for the ball and almost instinctively twisted his body to hand the ball off to senior forward Tyson Degenhart like a quarterback handing off to his running back. Degenhart had a clear lane to the basket to slam the ball down for two of his game-high 19 points.