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How good is Boise State when they are healthy?

Jeff Elorriaga

Boise State’s Jeff Elorriaga (11) shoots a 3-pointer against Corban during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game, Sunday, Dec. 30, 2012, in Boise, Idaho. Elorriaga made a school-record 10 3-pointers and scored 30 points to lead Boise State to a 105-49 win. (AP Photo/Matt Cilley)

AP

As always, Dan Hanner of RealGM.com did some terrific work this week as he broke down the Kenpom rating of teams that dealt with injuries to key players this season, looking at their numbers with and without that player.

Some of it is quite obvious: Duke, arguably the best team in the country when Ryan Kelly was injured back in January, will look like the best team in the country when he comes back healthy and scores 36 points in a win over Miami. It’s also interesting to see just how good Florida is -- on both ends of the floor -- when they are at full strength.

And while Hanner goes on to look at a good 20 teams, the most interesting, to me, are the numbers he came up with for Boise State. Here is the chart and the blurb he came up with for the Broncos:

Screen shot 2013-03-05 at 3.02.36 PM

Boise St. has been climbing into brackets this week, and you might look at their ranking of 51 on kenpom.com and think they are not all that deserving. But Jeff Elorriaga, Mikey Thompson, Igor Hadziomerovic, Derrick Marks, and Kenny Buckner have all missed games this year including some key losses for the Broncos. When fully healthy, Boise St. has been the 33rd best team in the nation.

When healthy, the Broncos are 16-3 with wins at Creighton and at home against UNLV and Colorado State. They lost to Michigan State in East Lansing by four points. They won at Wyoming when that was still something that was impressive, and they did so while leading scorer Derrick Marks and three other players were suspended.

This is a good basketball team, and if they can win at UNLV tonight or beat San Diego State in Boise on Saturday, they’ll have a bid to the tournament all but locked up.

You can find Rob on twitter @RobDauster.