Drew Fielder finished with 16 points and five rebounds to lead Boise State to a 77-68 win over Butler Saturday afternoon in Indianapolis.
Dylan Andrews scored 20 points to lead all scorers while Andrew Meadow and Javan Buchanan tallied 10 points apiece as the Broncos (6-3) won their second straight and ended Butler’s four-game winning streak.
Michael Ajayi scored 16 points and grabbed eight rebounds to lead Butler (7-2), which suffered its first home loss of the year. Drayton Jones added 12.
Finley Bizjack, who had registered 20 or more points in his last three games for Butler, was held to just 10 points on 5-of-12 shooting from the field.
Boise State led 33-31 at halftime but Jamie Kaiser quickly turned the tide in Butler’s favor, scoring off an and-one play before stealing the ball and racing down the floor for a two-hand dunk as Butler pulled in front, 36-33, less than a minute into the second half.
Down 46-39, the Broncos erased the deficit with a 15-2 run, leading 54-48 at the 12:23 mark after Aginaldo Neto’s layup, the basket part of a stretch that featured a 7-for-7 showing from the floor.
The Broncos maintained the momentum the rest of the way and held the Bulldogs scoreless for nearly seven minutes late in the half.
Boise State didn’t make a field goal in the final 3:30 but got two free throws from Andrews with 21 seconds left for a double-digit lead.
After four lead changes in the first four minutes, two free throws by Jones and a fadeaway jumper near the free throw line from Kaiser gave Butler an 8-5 advantage.
Boise State later responded with a 9-0 run on the strength of back-to-back 3-pointers from Pearson Carmichael and Andrews, putting the Broncos up 17-12 with 10:45 to play.
Butler went more than five minutes without making a shot from the field before Ajayi’s dunk ended the drought with 8:39 to go, cutting the Boise State lead to 20-15.
But then the Broncos went cold, missing seven of eight attempts from the floor, while the Bulldogs used a 7-0 run to even the score at 22-22 after a 3-pointer from Evan Haywood with 5:10 left.
The Bulldogs made four of their final five shots from the field, including a layup by Yame Butler with two seconds left, and trailed by only two at the half.
