SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO — The San Diego State men’s basketball team improved to 5-1 to start the season after they defeated the California Golden Bears, 76-67 in overtime on Saturday, Nov. 25 at the JSerra High Pavillion.
Guard Reese Waters led the Aztecs in scoring with 24 points, while forward Jaedon LeDee was second in scoring with 19 points. Both Waters and LeDee also led the team in rebounds with seven each.
The Golden Bears jumped out to an early 5-0 lead until Watters scored on a pull-up jumper to put the Aztecs on the board. Watters then tied the game up at five after hitting the team’s first three-pointer.
The two teams kept going back and forth until Cal began to commit a series of fouls that kept putting SDSU at the free-throw line. By the end of the first half, SDSU had 13 free throw attempts to the Golden Bear’s 7.
After Cal guard Jaylon Tyson tied the game up at 16 with a 3-pointer, both teams kept going back and forth again. At the end of the half, SDSU led 39-34, with the Scarlet and Black shooting 33% from the field to Cal’s 28%.
At the beginning of the second half, the Aztecs began to pull away behind LeDee and Waters. With 9:24 left in the game, SDSU had momentum and led by 12 points with the score being 59-47.
However, the Aztecs failed to score a field goal in the rest of regulation. The Golden Bears then began to mount a comeback, led by Cal forward Fardaws Aimaq, who scored six points in the half and had five rebounds.
Down by seven with 5:19 left in the game, Golden Bears guard Rodney Brown Jr. hit two clutch threes to make the score 63-62 in favor of SDSU. Cal eventually tied the game after a made free throw by Amiaq.
SDSU got the last chance to shoot the ball at the end of regulation but came up short after a missed layup by LeDee that Cal guard Jalen Cone rebounded. At the end of regulation, the score was tied 63-63.
The Aztecs started overtime playing with a lot of confidence by locking down Cal’s offense and forcing two turnovers. Head coach Brian Dutcher spoke about the team’s confidence entering overtime.
“We just played an overtime game last week, so we should be comfortable and play the same way we (did) against Washington,” Dutcher said. “Let everything go that happened during the game and refocus for the next five minutes.”
SDSU quickly regained the lead after two free throws by Watters. Soon after, the Aztecs followed up those free throws with a defensive stop and 2-point jumper by LeDee to give the team a 67-63 lead with 2:55 left in overtime.
Cal cut the lead to two after free throws by Tyson and Amiaq, who each made one free throw. However, the game was soon out of reach for them after a 2-point jumper by LeDee off of a turnover and two made free throws by guard Darrion Trammell.
Amaiq then made a second-chance layup to make the score 71-67, but the deficit was too much for the Golden Bears. Cal then began to foul the Aztecs as time began to run out, and SDSU kept making their free throws.
The Aztecs finished the game shooting 35% from the field and 26% from behind the arc. The Golden Bears finished the game shooting 32% from the field and 24% from behind the 3-point line.
The Aztecs’ next game is against Point Loma Nazarene at Viejas Arena on Monday, Nov. 27 at 7 p.m.