The No. 17 San Diego State men’s basketball team (3-0) secured its first road win of the year against the Stanford Cardinal (1-2) 74-62. Three players finished in double digits and the SDSU bench was huge in the road win contributing 37 points.
The win moved the Aztecs to a 3-0 start for the sixth time in the last 13 seasons as they entered as the 17th ranked team in the country. The Aztecs were efficient all night shooting 50.1% from nine different scorers.
SDSU’s defense came prepared, forcing Stanford to turn the ball over 17 times leading to 21 points off turnovers. The Aztecs didn’t make anything easy on Stanford as they shot just 40.4% from the field and struggled all night from beyond the arc shooting 4-18.
Head coach Brian Dutcher made it evident that his team frustrated the Cardinal offense all night with their aggressive play.
“We guard hard,” Dutcher said. “That’s the one thing, if teams get baskets on us, they usually deserve them.”
Senior transfer Jaedon LeDee continued his dominant play leading the way for SDSU with 14 points on 6-8 shooting off the bench. He was a plus-23 on the court which was the highest on the team. LeDee has made an instant impact for SDSU as he has started the season with double figures in all three games shooting a team high 54.5%.
“I’ve got a deep roster and I have to take advantage of that,” Dutcher said.
SDSU never trailed in the game as senior guard Matt Bradley opened the night for the Aztecs nailing a three pointer. The Aztecs continued to pile it on Stanford, leading by as much as 17 late in the first half. The Cardinal offense would respond though, scoring six straight to end the first half and cut their deficit to 11 going into the break 41-30.
“We played a good first half,” Dutcher said. “I thought our point guard play was really good. The fact that Darrion and Lamont had 12 assists and only one turnover was great. When they play like that, when they take care of the ball and get everybody involved, we are hard to guard, so they did a really good job.”
Junior guard Lamont Butler finished the game with 11 points of his own and more importantly finishing with no turnovers pacing the Aztec offense.
Midway through the second half, Stanford cut the Aztec lead to just six after back-to-back three pointers. However, that would be the closest the Cardinal would get as SDSU responded with a 15-4 run and closed out the Pac-12 squad 74-62.
Coach Dutcher was modest in victory, highlighting that despite the win, the Aztecs had much to improve on and that this was only the beginning.
“We made a lot of mistakes, but it’s a lot better to learn from a win than learn from a loss,” Dutcher said. “So the key is we can’t get full of ourselves because we are 3-0. We have to know it’s a long journey, we have to get better, and we will start that process again when we get back into San Diego.”
SDSU will next head to the islands for the Maui Jim Maui Invitational where they will kick off tournament play against the undefeated Ohio State Buckeyes.
