San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
SDSU falls to Utah State, now 1-6 in last 7 MW championship games
San Diego State has been a pretty darn good basketball team for several years now. It’s just not very good in the Mountain West Tournament championship game.
A day after overcoming a 16-point lead, the fifth-ranked and top-seeded Aztecs squandered one Saturday and lost 59-56 against second-seeded Utah State in the final at UNLV’S Thomas & Mack Center — just as they had a year earlier.
It’s becoming a familiar, frustrating feeling. For all the banners hanging in Viejas Arena, only one in the last nine years is for a conference tournament title. The
Aztecs are now 1-6 in their last seven finals, the lone win coming in 2018 by a team that was buried in the standings and won nine straight games to close the season.
They’ve reached the final all five times as the No. 1 seed. Lost it four times.
If it was any consolation, and judging by the looks on the players’ faces afterward it wasn’t, this one was closer than the others. It took a step-back 3 by Utah State’s Sam Merrill with 2.6 seconds left (and KJ Feagin draped all over him) to clinch it moments after Malachi Flynn had missed a similar shot at the other end.
Inbounding from the opposite baseline, the Aztecs
set up for a last-second play, then changed it after Utah State called timeout and rubbed Flynn off two screens to get him the ball at midcourt. He took a dribble and launched a 40-footer that hung in the air forever before bouncing off the back rim … and front rim … and out.
That drops the Aztecs to 30-2 and, perhaps, off the 1 line for NCAA Tournament seeding. That might not be the worst thing in the world, though, since it likely would slot them in the West Regional at Staples Center in Los Angeles instead of traveling to New York or Houston for regionals as a 1 seed.
“Last year at this time it was way harder,” coach Brian Dutcher said of the 64-57 loss against Utah State in the 2019 final. “We lost and our season was over. (This year) we lost, and they’re debating on TV right now whether we’re a 1 or 2 seed, so there’s not a whole lot to be upset about.”
Maybe his players will agree in a few days. They weren’t in the mood Saturday, staring daggers through the back of the media room and answering questions in hushed, measured tones.
“I think I speak for everybody when I feel like that (Merrill’s) shot and us taking this loss just took all the life out of us,” Feagin said, almost in a whisper. “I wanted to cut down nets. We all wanted to cut down nets … We weren’t looking forward to the NCAA Tournament. We were looking at the task at hand, and we didn’t get the job done.”
Utah State (25-8) did instead, securing the conference’s automatic NCAA berth after bouncing around the bubble for the past month.
No. 5 got beat because of No. 5.
“Sam Merrill decided to take over the game, that’s it,” Dutcher said. “March is for players.”
Merrill finished with 27 points, after scoring 27 in the semifinals, after scoring 29 in the quarterfinals. He made six 3s. He was the primary ball handler and played the entire 40 minutes after playing 38 and 34 in the previous two days, and didn’t have a turnover. He guarded Flynn most of the game and held him to 16 points on 6-of-20 shooting. (Not surprisingly, he was named tournament MVP.)
SDSU led by 27-11 after the Aggies went 13 minutes and 19 possessions without a basket, only for them to close the half with a 10-2 run triggered by back-to-back-toback jumpers by Merrill. They went ahead with 8:52 left on — what else — backto-back 3s by Merrill.
SDSU still led 56-55 inside a minute to go on an elbow jumper by Flynn. Merrill then drew a foul on Feagin with 39 seconds left on a play where, some replay angles indicated, he seemed to initiate as much contact as he received. Merrill proved he is human, though, missing a free throw in the final minute of a game for the first time of his four-year career before making the second to tie it.
Now it was Flynn’s turn. He drove left hard, stepped back and launched a 3. No good.
Utah State coach Craig Smith opted against calling timeout, and the seconds ticked down as Merrill dribbled near midcourt against Feagin in their “1-4 flat” set where the other four players stay on the baseline to give him room to operate. With five seconds left, Merrill drove left hard, stepped back and launched an even deeper 3.
Good.
Merrill: “I had a move and vision that I was going to do. I didn’t get to it because he took it away, but I just threw it up there and it went in. OK, I didn’t throw it up there. I shot it. But you know what I’m saying.”
Feagin: “I felt like up until the release of the shot, I was right there on every move. Props to him.”
Dutcher: “Basically the game ended like this: Our best player had a step-back 3 and he missed it. Their best player had a step-back 3 and he made it. Both coaches put it in their best player’s hands.”
The Aztecs, though, might have lost this game much earlier, in the first half when they had the only unanimous preseason favorite in Mountain West history staggering on the ropes and couldn’t land the knockout punch.
“The way we finished the first half was huge because not a lot was going right on the offensive end, and we kind of weathered the storm,” Smith said. “We go in at halftime down eight, but quite frankly it felt like we should have been down 18. That was huge for us.”
SDSU’S undoing was 34.4-percent shooting and seven second-half turnovers after having none for the first 24 minutes. Flynn, Feagin and Yanni Wetzell combined for 39 points, and Aguek Arop had eight points and four rebounds in 15 minutes off the bench, but the other two starters had rough days.
After Jordan Schakel scored 26 in the previous two tournament games, Utah State had defenders glued to him on the perimeter. He took three shots and didn’t score.
Matt Mitchell had four points on 1-of-7 shooting and was a frequent sub for defensive purposes, playing just 26 minutes despite not being in major foul trouble. He drew this assessment from Dutcher: “Matt didn’t have a great game. Obviously, I think he’d be the first to say that … Not one of his better efforts.”
The Aztecs didn’t get lit up in the first half, like they had in the previous five games (when teams all shot 50 percent or better). This time, it came in the second half. Utah State went from 30.4 percent to 56 percent, from 3 of 14 behind the arc to 6 of 10.
“I think our guys really wanted to play San Diego State,” Smith said. “I wanted to play San Diego State. I want to make it very clear, we respect them, like, beyond belief. But we lost to them both times in the regular season, and last year we beat everybody on our schedule that we played twice.
“At their place, just by coincidence, they’re retiring Kawhi Leonard’s uniform. We were up eight at half, up 12 in the second half and then the wave kind of got the best (of us). But when we can go toe-to-toe at their place knowing we didn’t play our best yet, we had so much confidence that we can come in here and take care of business.”