The San Diego State men’s basketball team suffered their first and only home loss at Viejas Arena this season to Boise State, 79-77, in overtime on Friday night to a sold-out crowd.
Boise State (22-9, 13-5 Mountain West) broke a 20-long home game winning streak that was the second longest of its kind in the country entering tip-off.
SDSU (22-9, 11-7) finished 14-1 at Steve Fisher Court, keeping the team one win away from its first perfect home slate since the 1966-67 season, and the first perfect season under D1 program team history.
Before tip-off, there was a pregame ceremony in which the six seniors were honored: Cade Alger, Lamont Butler, Jaedon LeDee, Jay Pal, Micah Parrish and Darrion Trammell. All came out with either family or friends and loved ones gifted a framed jersey of their own by head coach Brian Dutcher.
“Viejas has been amazing my whole four years being here. The fans are second to none,” Butler said. “The crowd really helps us go on runs at home, and we wish we could have gotten a win for the last one this year. We have to look forward to the tournament now and make this our last loss.”
On two separate occasions, the Scarlet and Black had 10-point leads in the second half before the Broncos rallied behind for the win.
Butler made a layup to take the lead 70-67 with 1:10 to go. A Boise State 3-pointer in near the corner tied the game with 52 seconds left, then Butler made both ends of a one-and-one with 31 left. After a Broncos miss, Butler missed the front end of another one-and-one, giving Boise State a chance to tie and send the game into overtime. BSU’s Roddie Anderson III nailed a short jumper, and fans were in for an extra quarter of play.
In overtime, Boise State’s Max Rice heaved an immaculate shot with a long 3-pointer at the logo as the shot clock expired, giving the Broncos the lead 77-72 with under two minutes to go in OT.
San Diego State tied the game with a shot off a rebound from Parrish and a 3-pointer from Trammell. Time was running out, however, and the Broncos made a pair of free throws with only 1.7 seconds remaining. The Aztecs’ final shot was blocked at the buzzer, and the Aztecs were no longer undefeated at home.
“We fought back, and then it came down to being unable to rebound, and Micah Parrish missed a shot at the end of regulation,” Dutcher said. “If that goes in, we’re celebrating tonight. It’s hard to win a college basketball game. We made enough plays to have a chance to win, but they made the plays to win and that was a difference.”
LeDee scored a game-high 21 points for the Aztecs, while Butler scored 13 points, Parrish had 12 and Trammell 11. Both LaDee and Butler had six rebounds as well.
San Diego State will find out who they play after Saturday’s Mountain West games, determining what seed they will be heading into next week’s conference tournament in Las Vegas.
“We are still the team to beat,” LeDee said. “When you watch the other teams play each other on film, they don’t even look the same when they’re playing us. What we’ve done in our history, what we’ve done last year, everybody will come for us no matter what.”
