MITCHELL HAS A GOOD SHOT AT MW POY
Dutcher says award should go to player on best team — his
Three thoughts on No. 19 San Diego State’s 71-62 win at UNLV on Wednesday night that clinched the regular-season Mountain West championship:
1. Player of the Year
Postseason conference awards will be released next week, with separate selections from the media and coaches. Many are obvious. One that is not: player of the year.
A week ago, Boise State’s Derrick Alston Jr. was considered the favorite, the way he was torching teams as the Broncos swept Utah State and took over first place. Then the Broncos lost three straight, and Alston shot his team out of the last two — going 1 of 9 and 1 of 8 behind the arc.
And SDSU, which was 3-3 and in fifth place in mid-January, won the outright regular-season title largely behind the offense and — this gets overlooked — defense of senior Matt Mitchell.
“I always think most valuable players should be from the conference champion, and we’re the conference champs,” coach Brian Dutcher said. “Matt’s contributions to our program in this conference are tremendous. He plays to win more than anything else. I’ve never seen him come in and pick a stat sheet up and see
how many points he scored or how many rebounds he has.
“The only thing he’s concerned with is winning. And to me that’s the most valuable player.”
Mitchell bolstered his case Wednesday night with 19 points, three rebounds, two assists and two steals, but maybe more by what he did on D: holding Bryce Hamilton, an NBA prospect and UNLV’s leading scored, to half his 18-point average on 3 of 14 shooting.
Mitchell regularly covers the other team’s best player, and regularly gets the better of him. Alston did drop 29 points in the first game of their series with Mitchell as his primary (but not only) defender, then had seven points (2 of 12 shooting) and five turnovers in the second.
“I pride myself on being a two-way player,” Mitchell said, “not only putting the ball in the basket and making the right play on the offensive end, but at the same time getting stops on the de
fensive end and rebounding the ball. I think I took a chip on my shoulder from Derrick Alston kind of going off that first game of the series. I just wanted to lock in and knew, coming into this game, I didn’t have a second chance. I had to be aggressive and stay aggressive for 40 minutes.”
People subscribing to Dutcher’s logic — best player on best team — or valuing both ends of the floor will vote for Mitchell. But you can make cases for four other players. The 6-foot-9 Alston (17.5 points) is a below-average defender but was the Mountain West’s most electric scorer. Utah State 7-footer Neemias Queta (14.8 points, 9.7 rebounds) is the best big. Nevada’s Grant Sherfield (18.0 points) is the best guard. Colorado State’s David Roddy (16.1 points, 9.6 rebounds) is the most versatile.
SDSU’s Malachi Flynn won it last year. Mitchell was asked if it’s important to him to win this year.
“Yes,” he said, pausing, “but at the same time, as long as we’re winning, I think I’d be content. Player of the year, I think it’s actually an accolade that comes with winning. All I’m worried about is winning games and winning the next one.”
2. Unsung heroes
To win back-to-back regular-season titles, to go 50-6 over two seasons, you need talented, committed, veteran players. You need a seasoned head coach. You need assistants who can pick apart opponents in the scouting report (the Aztecs are 5-0 against Boise State since Chris Acker left there to join Dutcher’s staff). You need a top 10 defense (the Aztecs are currently No. 8 in defensive efficiency in the Kenpom metric).
You also need a good trainer and fitness coach.
It does you no good if those talented players can’t play.
The unsung heroes of SDSU’s win at UNLV were athletic trainer Sergio Ibarra and Justin Landry, who replaced Andrew Mitchell as strength and conditioning coach last summer. The guys who got Mitchell back on the floor less than two weeks after violently hyperextending his knee worked their magic with Jordan Schakel 24 hours after Dutcher admitted his 6-6 senior’s lower back spasms were such that he considered him “doubtful” for the game.
“I didn’t know if I was going to play, either,” Schakel said. “It was a lot of treatment. (They’re) very good at what they do, just trying some different things to see if
it would loosen up, to see if it would calm down. It ended up that I was able to play.”
By a lot of treatment, he means A LOT. He got off the plane Tuesday night and got treatment. Woke up Wednesday morning, more treatment. After shootaround, more treatment. At the arena before the game, more treatment.
While the coaches were giving their final pre-game instructions in the locker room at Thomas & Mack Center, they spoke over the thumping of a “viper” machine hooked up to Schakel’s back to provide a combination of heat and light massage. There were also multiple sessions with an electric stimulation unit. Ibarra worked on hip mobilization and used active release technique. Landry performed postural restoration therapy to correct muscle imbalances.
It wasn’t until 10 minutes before tip that Schakel gave the thumbs up.
His line: 30 minutes, 16 points, nine rebounds.
“He’s gutty,” Dutcher said. “I’m sure he’s not anywhere near 100 percent, but Jordan Schakel at 50 percent is good enough for us.”
3. Life on the bubble
It’s safe to say the Aztecs are in the NCAA Tournament, no matter what happens next week at the conference
tournament. Beyond that, who knows.
There was a time when the Mountain West was touted for four teams in the Big Dance. The three others — Colorado State, Boise State and Utah State — are still just in or just out of the 68-team field according to most bracketologists, and the next nine days will determine how many, if any, join the Aztecs on Selection Sunday.
If any of the three win the conference tournament, they’re in automatically and the Aztecs get an at-large berth. The bigger question — and the nightmare scenario for the Mountain West — is what happens if the Aztecs cut down nets in Las Vegas: Can any of the other three survive another loss and still get in?
The answer lies somewhere between probably not and heck no.
Colorado State (14-3): The Rams are a respectable 40th in the NCAA’s NET but their other metrics are not NCAA material: 60 in Kenpom, 67 in Sagarin, 70 in ESPN’s BPI. The first order of business is not losing tonight at fifth-place Nevada. They also need to beat Utah State in the semifinals of the conference tournament. Even then, an at-large berth might be tough given their nonexistent nonconference résumé. The best team they
faced was Saint Mary’s, a 5333 loss three days before the Aztecs beat the Gaels by 25.
Utah State (13-4): The Aggies have the worst NET (47) of the three but are better in Kenpom (45), Sagarin (50) and BPI (51). Their nonconference résumé is weak, including an early loss against South Dakota State and no wins against top 150 teams. The potential semifinal matchup against Colorado State, then, essentially is an elimination game. But if it comes down to it, who is the committee taking: Duke or a team from Logan, Utah?
Boise State (14-6): The Broncos went from first to fourth after being swept by SDSU, then lost at home against Fresno State and dropped into the 50s in most metrics. They’re still 44 in the NET. They’re also the only team in the top 60 with what is classified as a Quad 4 loss, compliments of the Bulldogs. ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi had them as his last team in Thursday, but that’s before the inevitable upsets in conference tournaments “steal” at-large bids and before power conference teams on the bubble beat other power conference teams in their tournaments, an avenue of upward mobility not available to mid-majors.