ORANGE IS THE NEW FOE
SDSU coaches have time to prepare for Friday’s game against Syracuse and the unorthodox 2-3 zone it uses
Sixth-seeded San Diego State opens the NCAA Tournament on Friday night at iconic Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis against 11thseeded Syracuse, which has been to the Big Dance 41 times and reached six Final Fours. That’s usually not a good thing in March.
But this much is: The Aztecs won’t be playing Hall of Fame coach Jim Boeheim and the Orange in or on some type of carrier.
They’ve played them twice before, both double-digit losses. The first was in the second round of the 2007 NIT before a crowd of 26,752 at Syracuse’s Carrier Dome, the largest crowd in tournament history. The second was in 2012 … outdoors on the deck of the USS Midway Museum aircraft carrier bobbing in San Diego Bay.
“I remember the free throws curving, the wind was blowing so hard,” said SDSU coach Brian Dutcher, then Steve Fisher’s lead assistant. “So you can imagine what the 3-point shots were doing. I thought we ran some great stuff, but they were good. They were punishing us inside and we couldn’t make a jump shot in the wind. That was something else.
“With the absence of wind, we might even make some 3s this time.”
The Aztecs shot 1 of 18 behind the arc. They did manage to get to the line 33 times but missed 19. Boeheim cracked: “Our defense was good. But, you know, our foul line defense was really good.”
There’s another important difference: That Syracuse team was ranked No. 9 in the preseason poll.
This Orange team finished 16-9 and in eighth place in the ACC, bowing out in the conference tournament quarterfinals on a buzzerbeater by top-seeded Virginia. They’re very good at the Carrier Dome (13-1) and very pedestrian everywhere else (3-8). They went 1-7 against Quad 1 opponents in the NCAA’s NET metric and are 41st in Kenpom, one spot below Utah State and 21 below SDSU. So, manageable. Another upside of their draw: The Aztecs avoided getting the winner of the First Four “play-in” games between 11 seeds, as two of the 6 seeds did, and not know their opponent until Thursday night. And in Syracuse, you have a team that employs an unorthodox 2-3 zone unlike any other in the nation.
“I like the fact that we actually know who we’re going to play,”
Dutcher said, “and have time to prepare for them.”
The downside: If they get past Syracuse, their likely secondround opponent Sunday is thirdseeded West Virginia, which gets 14th-seeded Morehead State on Friday.
It’s not so much facing the Mountaineers and their ferocious full-court press. It’s doing it with a single day of practice.
The Aztecs have been there, done that, and it’s not a pleasant memory. They played West Virginia in the second game of a Thanksgiving tournament in Las Vegas in 2015. Had trouble even inbounding the ball. Lost 72-50.
“They pressed us off the floor,” Dutcher said. “And so I’m not looking forward to that, either, but I’m looking forward to the chance to play. If we can beat Syracuse, I will embrace the fact that we are going to be pressed and put to the test.”
The team spent the night in Las Vegas following Saturday’s 67-58 win against Utah State in the Mountain West Tournament championship and flew directly to Indianapolis early Sunday morning, then loaded the 30-person travel party onto three (yes, three) buses for the ride to their hotel.
Now they’ll strictly quarantine in individual rooms for two days, eating meals there, not congregating with teammates or practicing until they each have two negative COVID-19 tests. Already, they were required to have seven straight days of negative tests just to get on the 150-seat charter flight.
That eliminated the iconic Selection Sunday shots of players seeing their school name called and learning their first opponent. Instead, they watched from their hotel rooms and reacted “together” via Zoom.
The biggest yelp when Syracuse appeared on the line below SDSU came from senior Matt Mitchell.
He admits it: The Orange were his favorite college team growing up. For years, he wore an orange headband everywhere.
“I really thought I was Carmelo Anthony,” Mitchell said of the NBA legend who led Syracuse to an NCAA title as a freshman in 2003. “I kind of modeled my game after him. That’s where I get my mid-range game and why I want to give people the business down low and get to my spots. It’s an opportunity like no other. … I mean, I’m looking forward to it.”
It will be an NCAA Tournament like no other.
The entire 68-team field will make its way to Indy over the next 24 hours. Seven courts in six different venues across the state will be used, starting Thursday with the First Four at Purdue’s Mackey Arena in West Lafayette and Indiana University’s Assembly Hall in Bloomington — both just over an hour’s drive away.
Four more venues, all in Indianapolis, come online for the remainder of the three-week tournament: Bankers Life Fieldhouse, home of the Indiana Pacers; Butler’s Hinkle Fieldhouse; Indiana Farmers Coliseum, a 6,500-seat building at the state fairgrounds; and Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the Indianapolis Colts that has hosted previous Final Fours. Up to 25 percent seating capacity will be allowed.
The Mountain West will have only two teams there after Utah State received at-large berth and an 11 seed against sixth-seeded Texas Tech, but the conference was afforded more respect than many bracketologists envisioned.
The Aztecs got a 6 seed after Jerry Palm of CBS Sports, among others, projected a 9. And Utah State not only got in but wasn’t sent to the First Four, meaning the Aggies weren’t among the last four in.
Colorado State was identified as the second team out, meaning the Rams would have made the field as well had Oregon State and Georgetown not claimed automatic berths by winning their respective conference tournaments and “stolen” bids from more qualified teams.
It is SDSU’s 13th trip to the NCAA men’s tournament in a halfcentury of Division I basketball on Montezuma Mesa and eighth in the last 12 years (and would have been ninth if the 2020 tournament wasn’t canceled). It is the fifth time it will open in white jerseys worn by the higher (or better) seed.
The Aztecs are 6-12 all time in the tournament. That breaks down to 6-3 against teams with worse seeds, and 0-9 against teams with better seeds or rankings.
Their last appearance, in 2018, ended quickly with a 67-65 loss as the 11 seed against sixth-seeded Houston in Wichita, Kan. Their last win came in 2015, against St. John’s in Charlotte, N.C., before losing to top-seeded Duke in the next round. Their deepest runs were to the Sweet 16 in 2011 and 2014.
Now, Syracuse.
“We’ve had a couple shots at them and haven’t broken through,” Dutcher said. “Hopefully this is our time to play well, shoot the ball well and find a way to win. … I’m just glad we’re not playing them on an aircraft carrier.”