6.8 seconds was all that remained to quiet a full crowd on Saturday afternoon at Viejas Arena. Utah State’s Tucker Anderson hit a 3-pointer to earn the Aggies their first-ever Mountain West Conference win, as No. 20 San Diego State fell 67-66.
Despite an 18-point lead with two minutes left in the first half, the Aztecs made just 7 of 27 from the field and missed all of their 11 attempted 3-point shots. They were outscored 35-23 in the second half.
“Hats off to Utah State. I told the team we’re going to have 16 or 17 games just like this,” said head coach Brian Dutcher. “Every game in the Mountain West goes right to the end. That’s this conference, and it’s going to be that way for a lot more games. We have to be mentally tough enough to step up and keep playing the way we’re capable of playing.”
SDSU (8-3, 1-1 Mountain West Conference) held a dominant first half, scoring the first seven points of the game, capped off by a 3-pointer from guard Miles Byrd. Once inside of 16 minutes, Utah State got within four points, until Byrd drained another three to go up 25-12 with less than eight minutes in the half to go.
The Scarlet and Black continued to push as a free throw from forward Jared Coleman-Jones put the team up 40-22 with just under two minutes to halftime. However, the Aggies (12-1, 2-0) closed the half on a run, scoring five points in the final nine seconds to call it a 43-32 game at the break. From that first half alone, Byrd had 12 of his 14 total points.
Following the break, the second half of play told a much different story. Both teams traded jump shots with Byrd scoring his final points of the game with 18:22 remaining. Utah State looked to rally back and scored the next eight points to make the score 45-42 with 15 minutes left. Guard Nick Boyd responded with two back-to-back buckets, but the Aggies took their first lead of the game, 56-55, with six minutes left after going on a 14-6 run.
“That is just the game of basketball. It is a game of runs where teams get hot back and forth, but it is about how you handle the runs,” Boyd said of the team’s second-half collapse. “Today, we did not handle their runs to the best of our ability, which is what gave them an opportunity to hit a big-time shot at the end of the game.”
Both teams made a pair of free throws right before the Aztecs scored eight straight to go up 65-58 with 1:56 left. After Ian Martinez for the Aggies drove towards the basket for a layup, a blocking foul had been called on Byrd on a close play that sent Utah State to the line for a free throw. It was Byrd’s fifth foul of the game, and fouled out one of the two Aztecs leading scorers.
“This is what it’s like playing in the Mountain West. We are going to go to at least five or six different spots that are going to be exactly like this,” Byrd said. “They’re going to be physical games, hard for refs to decide what are fouls and what are not fouls. We are not the only arena in our conference that sells out and has a great crowd. This is a really good basketball conference, and this was Mountain West basketball.”
The Aggies made a three with 1:16 remaining to become a one-point game before Nick Boyd put a free throw in to put SDSU back up two. Utah State then hit the dagger to win, with a missed shot from Wayne McKinney with three ticks left ending the game.
Dutcher spoke to the struggles on offense that were credited to Utah State’s defense.
“Utah State makes you take a lot of threes because you don’t get to the basket very often. I don’t know how many times we got in the paint,” Dutcher said. “That’s the nature of their defense. They made us play all the way to the end of the shot clock, where we had to hoist a couple up. We were trying to penetrate the zone and exhaust possession. That’s the difference in the game. They made one, and I thought we had a pretty good rhythm three that didn’t go in.”
Both Boyd and Byrd had 14 points each, while Boyd and Coleman-Jones had five rebounds each and Magoon Gwath with seven.
SDSU is on a bye for Tuesday, and will travel to Boise State for their next game for a 1 p.m. tip on Saturday, January 4, 2025 at Extra-Mile Arena. The game will be nationally televised on CBS.
