The San Diego State men’s basketball locker room board had a pair of numbers written on it before the game: 77-1 — Gonzaga’s record at home over the past five seasons.
Better make that second number a two, after a signature road win for the 2023-2024 SDSU (11-2) season in the showdown between the last two West Coast teams to play for the National Championship.
Fittingly, the 84-74 Aztecs win was also their second win against the Bulldogs (9-4) in Spokane, Washington, and just the fourth-ever double-digit win by a visitor at McCarthey Athletic Center.
“It was a team effort, but there’s no water flying around, we expected to win,” said assistant coach Dave Velasquez.
“If you come to San Diego State, you expect to play these games, you expect to play (in) these environments and you expect to win.”
Reese Waters exemplified that heady cool for the Aztecs in front of the sellout crowd of 6,000 at the venue known as “The Kennel,” scoring 15 of his game-high 22 points in the second half.
“We came into a hostile environment, you know, a team that’s really good, ranked high,” Waters said. “We came out and did what we were supposed to do.”
Jaedon LeDee notched his seventh 20-point game of the season as he grabbed an SDSU-best seven rebounds. It led the way down low as the Aztecs held their own with a 40-36 advantage in points in the paint, despite being out-rebounded 35-33 (11-8 offensive).
The keys were a 32-11 advantage in bench scoring — powered by a personal season-high 17 points from Darrion Trammell, plus a career-high 9 points from Miles Byrd — and a 21-19 edge in points off turnovers.
Trammell kept the Aztecs in the game with 15 of his points coming in the see-saw first half which saw six lead changes and was tied six times. The senior guard scored 10 of SDSU’s 14 points over a stretch of 3:26 to help SDSU take its first multiple-possession lead of the game near the 12-minute mark.
“It was big for (Trammell) to get his confidence back (with) everything he’s been through and having a kind of a change of a role, which is always hard to do,” Velasquez said.
Gonzaga answered with a run of their own, sparked by a pair of familiar transfers.
Junior guard Ryan Nembhard (who the Aztecs faced in the Elite Eight last year with Creighton) and redshirt junior forward Graham Ike (who was Mountain West Preseason Player of the Year with Wyoming last year) helped the hosts build an 8-point lead with 4:03 before the break.
SDSU scored 11 of the final 13 points in the half, taking a 38-37 lead after a Trammell triple, a Waters jumper and an Elijah Saunders lay-in closed a 7-0 run over the final 1:25 before the break.
The Aztecs never trailed in the second half and went on a decisive 18-3 run over a four-minute stretch early to build their lead out to 62-47 at the 13:26 mark. It was aided by a technical foul on Gonzaga freshman guard Dusty Stromer, who shoved Byrd after a loose ball foul on the sophomore while battling for a rebound.
Gonzaga didn’t go quietly, switching to a trapping full-court press after the media timeout at 11:28 and chipping their way back into the game off of 9 second half Aztec turnovers.
The hosts were able to scratch within 3 and 4 points, but each time SDSU responded with gut-punch triples.
First, Waters sank a 3-pointer from the top of the key to push the lead back out to 71-65 with six minutes to play. Then, after a Nembhard jumper, Byrd delivered the knockout with a left corner three in front of an already rowdy Scarlet and Black bench.
“You’ve gotta have guys like Miles Byrd step up, and he hit that huge corner three,” Velasquez said. “(Byrd) made some plays defensively tonight that you just can’t teach… it’s fun, the lights are on now for that young fellow, so here we go.”
SDSU put the defensive clamps on down the stretch to close it out, holding the Bulldogs to one make over their final eight shots and scoreless in the final 3:12 of the game.
Ike led the Bulldogs with 20 points and 10 rebounds, while graduate student forward Anton Watson had 16 points and Nembhard scored 15 points with 9 assists.
With the win, the Aztecs join Saint Mary’s (2) and BYU (3) as the only programs with multiple wins over Gonzaga at McCarthey Athletic Center. SDSU, the Gaels and Purdue are the only programs to pick up wins over ranked Gonzaga since December of 2017.
No. 15 Colorado State (12-1), Nevada (12-1), Utah State (12-1) and New Mexico (11-1) top the Mountain West heading into conference play.
Every team will likely enter with a winning record — UNLV is currently 5-5 but has NAIA Carroll College and NCCAA Bethesda University left on their schedule before Mountain West play begins.
“The competition matters — everybody’s a threat, especially in basketball — everybody’s got dreams, everybody’s got goals,” Waters said.
“But playing here is a little different, playing teams like BYU (and) Grand Canyon is a little bit different. I’m glad (coach Brian Dutcher) put those games up. It tests us. Test our mental for sure, of course, our physical, but definitely our mental.”
San Diego State opens the defense of their Mountain West Conference championships against Fresno State (7-6) at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2024 at Viejas Arena.
