ByJon GoldSenior Staff Writer
With all of the hoopla of a funeral, the San Diego State men’sbasketball exhibition season started out with a resounding boom onTuesday night. Despite turning the ball over 23 times, the new-lookAztecs displayed several flashes of brilliance en route to an 85-55victory over the L.A. Stars.
With four new starters in the lineup, SDSU barely resembles lastyear’s NIT team. Gone are Tony Bland, Mike Mackell, Evan Burns andDeAndre Moore, and in their places are an athletic nucleus of youngerplayers. Junior transfer Wesley Stokes had 13 points to go along withsix assists, but also turned the ball over five times.
“It felt great,” Stokes said. “Basketball is pretty much our livesfor the guys that sat out last year. We’ve been doing it since about6 or 7 years old. We wanted to get out on the court, but we couldn’tdo it because of NCAA rules.”
While showing some signs of their youth, the Aztecs’ two big-timefreshmen, guard Brandon Heath and forward Marcus Slaughter, lookedbrilliant at times against the much older Stars.
Heath overcame four turnovers (including three in four minutes)and poured in 16 points on 7-of-11 shots. Slaughter playedconsistently well throughout the game, adding 11 points (with 5-of-7from the free-throw line).
The team controlled the boards throughout the contest,out-rebounding the Stars 52-29. With 13 points and 11 rebounds,forward Aerick Sanders showed why he will be heavily relied upon bycoach Steve Fisher throughout the season. In his first game on theMesa since the 2001-02 season, junior forward Chris Walton knockeddown 57 percent of his shots for 11 points and also tallied adouble-double with 10 boards.
The team also received some surprising contribution from seniorguard Ben Wardrop, who played a career-high 16 minutes. The walk-onscored six points and had three rebounds, while fellow guard JohnSharper bucketed eight points.
The game began without much excitement, as both teams refused torelinquish a big run. Neither team led by more than seven, and theStars pulled to within one at the half, courtesy of a steal andsubsequent three pointer by Derrick Anderson.
The second half panned out much differently than the first, withan obviously fatigued Stars team pretty much falling by the wayside.The Stars traveled from Iowa State the night before, and their jetlag left them too tired to compete in the second stanza.
The Aztecs struck early and often in the second half, parlayingtheir fresh legs into a 23-2 run.
“They played hard tonight,” Walton said. “They’re good players andthey’ve been travelling a lot the last couple games. But when you’vegot guards like Wesley and Brandon, we got the opportunity to go onspurts when we’ll score 10, 12, 15 points in a couple of minutes.They push the balls to us and get it back for us on defense.”
