San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
UGLY LOSS TO USC WASN’T WORST PART
Aztecs’ victory over Hoyas loses some of its luster on Friday
Three thoughts on San Diego State’s 58-43 loss against No. 24 USC on Friday night in the championship game of the Wooden Legacy at Anaheim Arena:
1. Where they stand
The worst thing that happened to SDSU at the Wooden Legacy was not shooting 32.1 percent, surrendering 15 offensive rebounds and scoring 15 points in the first half of what would have been a 20-point spanking had the Trojans not gone 6 of 18 at the line. No shame in losing to a ranked team that went to the Elite Eight last spring.
It was what happened 2½ hours earlier, when Georgetown fell behind a very average Saint Joseph’s team by 13 and lost 77-74.
College basketball is weird that way. You play a team and try to beat its brains out, then you root like heck for them the rest of the season. Computer metrics used by the NCAA Tournament selection committee are based on what you do but also what your opponents do against everyone else — even what your opponents’ opponents do.
We’re at the midpoint of the Aztecs’ nonconference schedule, and they haven’t helped or hurt themselves. There are no bad losses of the sort that Boise State suffered Friday (46-39 at home against Bakersfield, yikes), and the two losses they do have — at No. 18 BYU and No. 24 USC on a neutral f loor — are excusable.
There aren’t any marquee wins, either.
In most years, Arizona State and Georgetown would qualify, and they still might given the plethora of raw talent on their rosters. But that would require major turnarounds by both teams after dreadful starts. While SDSU was at the Wooden Legacy, ASU was at the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas losing three straight to drop to 2-5 and fall from 58th at the start of the season to 84th in the Kenpom metric.
Georgetown has plummeted even further, from 69th to 108th, after the loss Friday against a Saint Joe’s team ranked 221st. The Hoyas are 2-3, with wins against 305 and 312 and a loss against 262 Dartmouth.
SDSU’S other wins are against UC Riverside, which is 5-2 but looked mortal in a 12-point loss at USD; and UT Arlington, which is 1-4 with a 276 Kenpom rating entering Saturday’s game at
Utah State.
The good news for the Aztecs is, unlike many of their Mountain West brethren, they still have chances for what the selection committee would regard as a “quality” win: at No. 20 Michigan next Saturday, and Dec. 17 in Phoenix against 6-1 Saint Mary’s.
That, and a lot can happened between now and March.
“Who knows what a good win is this time of the year, you know?” coach Brian Dutcher said. “There are expectations and rankings and (predictions) where everyone is going to finish, and then two months from now you’re playing a team that you thought was good and they’re in last place, or you beat a team you thought that we should have (beat) and they’re winning their conference.
“Right now, you can shake them all up and you won’t know if it’s a good win or bad loss or in between until the end of the year.”
2. The scout
USC had 10 assists, but the biggest one might have come from someone not suited up.
Assistant coach Jay Morris had the SDSU scout, and for good reason. He was on Dutcher’s staff for the previous three seasons and left in August to replace Jason Hart, who took a job in the G League.
The Trojans were already familiar with SDSU’S most prominent newcomer, Matt Bradley, who faced them four times while at Cal. Morris provided the intel on everyone else.
“We knew their personnel really well,” senior wing Drew Peterson said. “Give credit to Coach Morris, who was on staff at San Diego State (before), with a great scout.”
Head coach Andy Enfield elaborated:
“He did a great job preparing our team on short notice. We gave him that scout because we knew we potentially were going to play San Diego State. In the last few days he was preparing and watched the game (Thursday) night. It was a benefit because he knew their personnel as well as their play calls and what they were trying to do.”
It’s not the biggest reason the Trojans won. The 6foot-9, 6-9, 6-10 starting front line had a lot to do with it. But intimate knowledge of an opponent certainly helps.
SDSU knows the other side. Chris Acker came from Boise State in 2019 and regularly gets the scout against the Broncos. The Aztecs had lost six of their previous 10 games against Boise State before he arrived and are 5-0 since.
3. The glass
This team can’t shoot. But we knew that, or at least suspected that, after losing three 1,000-point career scorers.
What we didn’t anticipate was the struggle on the boards by one of SDSU’S biggest, most physical rosters in history.
It didn’t start that way. UC Riverside, the eighthtallest team in Division I, managed only three offensive boards in the opener, and BYU had zero through the first 19 minutes. Put another way, opponents grabbed only three of their first 42 misses — or 7.1 percent. (The national average is 28.5 percent.)
Then something changed. BYU grabbed two offensive boards in the final minute of the first half and 11 more in the second. ASU got nine. UT Arlington got 17. Georgetown got 12. USC got 15.
And that’s in relatively low-possession games. Since the final minute of the first half at BYU, opponents are rebounding 38.6 percent of their missed shots (66 of 171). That would rank in the bottom 15 nationally. As it is, they’re 249th overall and falling, their worst since the 1118 season in 2004-05.
They went from being plus-12 in second-chance points through the season’s first 59 minutes to minus-30 in the subsequent 181 minutes.
The problem against Arlington was guards running in from the wings unmolested and snatching boards. Twice against USC, the Aztecs allowed offensive rebounds off missed free throws — something that makes Dutcher cringe.
“We’re working on boxing out,” Dutcher said. “That’s what we have to do. You’re only good at what you work on. We spent some time on free throw box outs, so we’ll continue to spend some more time on it. There’s only so much time and practice you can devote to one thing or another. But if we continue to give up free throw second-chance opportunities, then we might have to spend a whole practice on it.
“Whatever it takes to get better.”