Key stat: For the 1996-97 season, the San Diego State women’s basketball team is 1-0 coming off a loss at home to a Pac-10 school (University of Southern California) when it has less turnovers than its opponent, scores more than 60 points, is leading at the half, out-rebounds its opponent and holds it to less than 36 percent shooting.
Such is the case following the Aztecs’ 66-51 drubbing of Pepperdine Saturday at Peterson Gym in front of 537 fans.
“It wasn’t by design,” Aztecs head coach Beth Burns said. “It was like, ‘ready or not here we come.'”
With starting guard Sandy Wright and starting center Atiya Williams hobbled by sprained ankles, SDSU (3-2) was led by a pair of backcourt freshmen. Sophia Sledge and Deidra Rucker, both true freshmen, may have given Aztec fans a peek into the near future, combining for 22 points, five assists and three steals.
And the SDSU faithful liked what they saw.
“We were having a lot of fun,” Sledge (five points, two assists) said. “We just tried to execute and run our plays.”
Burns has a simple philosophy about who gets playing time play well in practice, play in the game. Rucker has taken that theory one farther. She has played well in both, netting a game-high 17 points against the Waves.
“She’s a talent,” Burns said. “She’s getting better and better every game, and she’s only a freshman.”
The Aztecs’ staple in the Burns era has been their defense. Since she took over the helm of the SDSU program eight years ago, her unrelenting pressure on defense has compiled a mark of 130-78. Each of the last four seasons, the Aztecs finished ranked in the top 10 in scoring defense.
But that’s something she feels hasn’t been up to SDSU’s standards in the early going of ’96, despite holding opponents to only 53 points per game.
“The goal going into (Saturday) was for us to play Aztec basketball,” Burns said. “And that’s to play Aztec defense. We hadn’t seen that yet.
“But I thought this was a team we could pressure. We saw a lot of film and we knew how they tried to break full-court pressure. We had a little trap designed for it. That gave us confidence early.”
Added Sledge: “Our defense was great. We got a lot of fast breaks, lay ups, two-on-ones and three-on-twos off of turnovers we caused.”
Senior Jodi Nowlin-Tres chipped in with six points, 11 rebounds (six offensive) and five steals. Junior Olivia DiCamilli tallied 12 points and nine rebounds. And forward La-Taya Woods totaled 11 points and five rebounds in 23 minutes of play.
