Following the one-point loss in the Mountain West Conference championship to Boise State on Saturday, head coach Brian Dutcher made clear what “the ultimate goal” still was.
“We came here all these years ago and we still preach the message, we’re here to play for a national championship, we’re here to play for a national championship,” Dutcher said.
The first step to playing for that NCAA championship comes Thursday as the 8-seed Aztecs (23-8, 13-4 MWC) have a date with the 9-seed Creighton Bluejays (22-11, 12-7 Big East).
Creighton finished fourth in the Big East this season with impressive wins over Villanova, UConn (twice) and Providence. Like the Aztecs, the Bluejays hang their hat on the defensive side of the ball behind 7-foot-1-inch sophomore center Ryan Kalkbrenner and senior power forward Ryan Hawkins. Kalkbrenner and Hawkins also lead Creighton in scoring with marks of 13.0 PPG and 13.9 PPG respectively.
For the Aztecs to find success in their first-round matchup, they will have to do what they’ve done all season — defend. The Bluejays are a relatively inexperienced team as four of their top 6 scorers are freshmen. This has led to inconsistent offense play and 14.1 turnovers per game.
Senior Nathan Mensah will have his hands full down low with Kalkbrenner, but if Mensah — the Mountain West’s Defensive Player of the Year — can hold his own and stay out of foul trouble, the Aztecs should be in a good position to leave the first round with a win.
If the Aztecs can protect the paint against Creighton’s frontline and force turnovers in the half-court, a sometimes inconsistent SDSU offense can find some easy baskets in transition, something they failed to find in last year’s tournament in their 78-62 loss to Syracuse.
SDSU is 3-4 all-time against the Bluejays. However, their most recent matchup came in 2019 in the semifinal of the Las Vegas Invitational where the Aztecs throttled Creighton winning 83-52. Five current Aztec players played in the last matchup including Mensah, seniors Trey Pulliam, Aguek Arop, Adam Seiko and junior Keshad Johnson.
If the Aztecs can get by the Bluejays, it likely sets up a matchup with the Midwest Region 1 seed Kansas, barring a dramatic upset by the winner of the First Four matchup between Texas Southern and Texas A&M Corpus-Christi.
The tournament is always unpredictable but with the second-best defense in the nation, the Aztecs have a good chance of making a deep run. Regardless, this year’s tournament is sure to be madness.
