Dominating the paint by getting to the glass and protecting the rim has been a hallmark of the San Diego State men’s basketball team for years.
To see that script flipped — with the host New Mexico Lobos playing that kind of bully-ball — made for a jolting 88-70 loss before the largest sellout crowd at The Pit in over 20 years on a nationally televised broadcast by CBS on Saturday afternoon.
“Hats off to the Lobos, they’ve done what they’re supposed to do — they held home court in the Mountain West,” said head coach Brian Dutcher.
“We gave up too many free throws and too many rebounds on the road to win a game. We had to win in one of those areas.”
The No. 19 Aztecs (14-3, 3-1 Mountain West) were able to build a 35-23 lead with 5:46 remaining in the first half, only to see it come crashing down as the Lobos (14-3, 2-2) went on a 17-0 run in the final 4:55 of the first half.
“I think we might have turned the ball over three times or something in a row,” said Miles Byrd, who scored double-digits (13 points off the bench) for the first time in his career.
“We talked a lot as a team about how we can’t turn the ball over against these guys because they do a really good job of being in transition. And that’s what they did and they made it count.”
UNM had a second-half stretch where they outscored SDSU, 20-4, over 6:44 to put it away for good.
New Mexico snatched a 47-37 advantage rebounding (14-8 on the offensive glass), had 14 blocked shots and 8 steals. Their defense held SDSU to 40.6% field goal shooting for the game and 48.4% from the paint.
Jaedon LeDee led the Aztecs with 15 points, but was hassled into 6 of 15 shooting and had six rebounds in 37 minutes — the fewest he’s had this season when playing 30-or-more minutes.
He also drew five fouls, making all three of his free throw attempts — also his season low in games with 30-plus minutes played.
“(LeDee) draws a lot of contact and sometimes it’s like we saw with Matt Bradley: just because you’re big and strong doesn’t mean you’re not getting fouled,” Dutcher said. “They just don’t want to call as much when you’re big and strong.”
The Aztecs made 11 of 20 free throws (3 of 6 in the first half) for the game, while New Mexico made 21 of 31.
“I mean, obviously, we saw a couple guys I haven’t seen, but it’s a hard job — officiating is a hard job,” Dutcher said. “They do the best they can and sometimes the environment affects them, too. Sometimes it doesn’t, but I thought they did as good a job as they could.”
Guard Jaelen House was the top villain for UNM, scoring a game-high 26 while grabbing 6 rebounds and tying Lamont Butler with a game-top 5 assists. He scored the first 11 points on the 17-0 run in the first half that turned the game and had the Lobos fans howling for the rest of the way.
Freshman forward JT Toppin had a 17-point, 16-rebound double-double while also blocking 5 shots. Nine of his boards came on offense, which tied the all-time UNM single-game record.
Guard Jamal Mashburn Jr. scored 13 of his 19 points in the second half, making 6 of his last 8 field goals to finish the game 7 of 17.
“We were in a position that we liked, they were able to capitalize when we were not focused,” Byrd said. “When we were a little lackadaisical, [Jamal] Mashburn and [Jaelen] House were able to get that mid-range and make some shots.”
Darrion Trammell scored 12 points in the game, becoming just the second active player who is 5-foot-11 or less with more than 1,500 career points.
Butler scored 7 points, recording the 800th point of his career on a driving layup 54 seconds into the game.
The 18-point loss was SDSU’s worst at The Pit since 2009.
“I mean, some of its metrics, they’re playing for metrics, too,” Dutcher said. “They wanted a big margin so that metrically it’ll improve their NET ranking and their campaign rankings. They played for the big margin and I would too.”
The Albuquerque venue has been a regular house of horrors for the Aztecs, where despite Butler’s buzzer-beater last season, SDSU has posted its lowest winning percentage all-time at 29.55% (going 13-31) amongst current Mountain West arenas.
San Diego State will regroup and face the Nevada Wolf Pack at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 17 at Viejas Arena.
The game will be televised on CBS Sports Network.
