San Diego State drops to 12-3 in the Mountain West after Grand Canyon University shocks the Viejas Arena crowd with a 73-63 victory to sweep the season series against the Aztecs.
The loss drops the Aztecs out of a tie for first place in the conference with Utah State, as SDSU now sits at 18-7 (12-3 MW). The seventh loss of the year for the Aztecs makes it tougher for the team to get an NCAA Tournament bid outside of winning the conference championship in March.
“I don’t really stress over that because if we play the way we’re supposed to play, and we win the Mountain West, we’ll find our way in there,” head coach Brian Dutcher said postgame. “I’m not looking to have anybody give us a gift and gift our way in; we’ll play our way in there, or we’ll play our way out.”
The SDSU offense struggled to find any rhythm during the game, shooting 22-62 from the field and 3-15 from beyond the arc. Miles Byrd led the Aztecs in scoring with his 18 points and made all three of the Aztecs’ three-pointers. Outside of Byrd, no Aztec found any offensive success, with no other player on SDSU having over double-digit points.
“They’re 3rd in the conference in defense and defense wins, that’s how we win. They held us to 35% shooting, 13 turnovers,” Dutcher said. “Didn’t shoot the ball well from three again, they’re really good at three-point defense.”
Aztecs guard Reese Dixon-Waters struggled to shoot, finishing with 6 points on 2 field goals. Dixon-Waters’ six points marked the first game since Dec. 20 against then-ranked No. 1 Arizona, where he had eight points.
“I thought Reese had some fumbles where he had clean catches that he fumbled the ball,” Dutcher said postgame.
Jaden Henley led all players with 21 points, shooting 7-17 from the field. Henley was a tough force for the Aztecs to stop, as the team couldn’t find anything defensively to throw at Henley to get him out of his groove.
As a team, Grand Canyon shot 7-19 from beyond the arc, absolutely plummeting SDSU as the Aztecs were unable to find any way to respond to the big shots from the Lopes.
Lopes big man Efe Demirel had a double-double in the game, putting up 14 points and 11 rebounds. Demirel’s rim protection proved to be a driving force in limiting the SDSU offense in the paint with his two blocks and seven defensive rebounds.
“They’re the only other team that matches our size, they got two giants in Efe [Demirel] and Dennis Evans, so you gotta respect size, it makes it tough to score in the paint,” Byrd said.
The Lopes led for 30 minutes of game time over the Aztecs and dominated the second half after losing the lead at the end of the first half. Coming out of the break, the Lopes found a quick offensive rhythm and took back any momentum that SDSU had.
“They kind of punched us in the mouth. They took a quick lead and I think we weren’t able to recover after that and you just got to tip your cap to GCU,” Byrd said postgame. “They made things really tough, really physical. I think it kind of took us out of our flow. I think all of us kind of rushed a few shots that we probably shouldn’t have taken.”
SDSU mounted a nine-point comeback after trailing for 12:30 in the first half. A Miles Byrd fade-away jumper prompted the Aztecs’ scoring streak in the final three minutes of the half. Taj DeGourville threw an alley-oop pass to freshman forward Tae Simmons for a slam that sent the Viejas crowd into a frenzy.
The two teams got off to a physical, intense start, with bodies flying on the court and players taking hard hits. SDSU got into foul trouble early in the first half, however, with nine fouls after the first four minutes of play.
With the win over SDSU, GCU now has swept three Mountain West rivals, including San Jose State and Boise State.
SDSU now looks to pick up a big road win against Colorado State on Saturday to maintain a fighting distance on Utah State, which now has sole possession of first place in the Mountain West.
San Diego State takes on Colorado State on Feb. 28 at 2 p.m. on CBS Sports Network.
