As the vast majority of 12,414 white-clad fans left Viejas Arena with their heads down after the No. 21 San Diego State men’s basketball team’s 79-77 Senior Night overtime loss, Aztecs head coach Brian Dutcher sat down to his postgame press conference with a smile on his face.
“That’s a heck of a college basketball game,” he said, after acknowledging his voice was scratchy from a combination of yelling in-game and a cold. “You always lose sight of it when you’re on the losing end, it’s miserable.”
Dutcher and the Aztecs (22-9, 11-7 Mountain West) never lose sight of the big picture all season — it’s a critical component of the program’s culture.
On Saturday night that meant watching Utah State secure the program’s first ever outright Mountain West Regular Season Championship with an 87-85 home win over New Mexico to lock SDSU into the No. 5 seed. Then Nevada’s 75-65 win in Reno over UNLV set the Runnin’ Rebels as the No. 4 seed and locked in the Scarlet and Black’s quarterfinal.
It sent the first tickle of March Madness through the Aztecs and their fans, who will now be looking forward to 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 13 at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas for SDSU’s conference tournament opener.
Cold snap and coughing up a lead
While much has been made of the slow starts by San Diego State in road games against the top six Mountain West Conference teams, the Aztecs were outscored by Boise State 21-11 in the final ten minutes.
The Broncos made five straight shots to trim a 59-49 deficit to 63-62 with 6:32 to play and set up the push to overtime..
Meanwhile, the Aztecs missed 9 of their last 14 shots in regulation.
Jaedon LeDee did not score in the final 18:02 of game action (including overtime) and was held to just two shot attempts over the spell, due in large part to Boise State shifting to a 1-3-1 zone on defense.
“That’s what the zone is made to do, keep it out of the paint,” LeDee said. “They went to the 1-3-1 to probably try to slow it down a bit.”
Dutcher noted that Boise State had not been using that particular zone much during conference play, but it’s one that SDSU has been seeing fairly frequently down the stretch.
“We’ve seen 1-3-1 in six, seven, eight, ten games this year, so we’ve got good plays,” he said. “I thought we did an okay job of attacking and we just missed shots… It’s good offense, it’s missing open shots sometimes and that’s what happened.”
It’s been a nagging issue all season, as San Diego State finished the regular season at the conference bottom in field goal shooting (44.5%) and from 3-point land (31.6%).
It also snapped a 27-game winning streak in games where the Scarlet and Black held the lead with five minutes remaining.
In five of their six conference road losses, the Aztecs have been within a possession with at least 6:43 remaining and been tied or had the lead with less than a minute to go in two of them.
Finding a way to make more of those open shots and finishing games out are of utmost importance in March.
Talking Tournament: Rebel rematch queued for quarterfinals
In a certain sense, it’s appropriate that the Aztecs will open the defense of their Mountain West tournament crown against UNLV (19-11, 12-6).
After all, the Runnin’ Rebels are the team that handed SDSU their sixth and final road loss just five days ago. It was also the Aztecs’ worst shooting night of the season (18-of-64 for 28.1 percent).
When regularly commenting during postgame press conferences about the “toughest Mountain West Conference he’s ever seen,” Dutcher has made a point to regularly make mention of how hot UNLV has been, born out by the Rebs winning 10 of their last 12.
So now, when the 4-5 quarterfinal tips off, it will give the Scarlet and Black the ultimate opportunity to upend trends and build momentum through the tournament. Get a win at a “neutral” site that is their opponent’s true home floor, and go from there.
For what it’s worth, the Thomas & Mack Center has been hospitable historically for the Aztecs in the Mountain West Tournament. SDSU is 38-15 in the 22 years the venue has hosted the event, and are 8-2 against UNLV come tourney time in Las Vegas and 9-2 overall.
The Aztecs are also 6-1 all time as a No. 5 seed in the tournament, winning the 2002 and 2018 tournaments from that slot, the only times that has happened in the Mountain West.
