San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
AZTECS UPSET IN TITLE GAME
San Diego State’s KJ Feagin displays frustration as Utah State’s Sam Merrill falls to the floor after making the game-winning three-pointer to win the Mountain West Conference Tournament in Las Vegas on Saturday.
These aren’t the havoc-wreakers who outmuscled BYU on the road and blitzed Creighton in November, the confidence-killers who suffocated Utah at Staples Center in December or the swaggering bunch that stormed Logan in January.
This isn’t the same Aztecs basketball team.
Amid the ashes of a 59-56 loss to Utah State on Saturday in the Mountain West Tournament championship, a game in which the No. 5 team in America wasted a 16point lead, questions generated by two weeks of walking tightropes like The Flying Wallendas stubbornly refuse to go away.
Is this a good team? Yes. Is it elite? Possibly. Is it changed? No doubt.
Will an extra week to prepare for the NCAA Tournament and the No. 1 or 2 seed it delivers allow the Aztecs to
brush away the mental cobwebs of late? Or will the time torment, allowing doubts to fester?
“We’re not the same team we were at the beginning of the season,” said junior Matt Mitchell, after misfiring on six of his seven shots. “We’ve shown flashes of it, maybe 30 out of 40 minutes, when we are that team that looks like we could be the best team in the country and are the best team in the country.
“But we’ve had lapses. You can’t have lapses against great teams.”
For the most part, that’s what is in front of the Aztecs — Ncaa-caliber teams dreaming that San Diego State’s second loss of the season, Baylor’s third loss in five games, Duke’s lateseason mortality reinforce that the Big Dance will be the ultimate toss-up.
As the close calls piled up, the temperature changed.
Opponents respect the Aztecs. There are too many weapons and wins not to lace ’em up without a full measure of reverence. You wonder, though, how many teams still truly fear them.
Earlier in the season, that needling dread was real. So much skill. So many shooters. Defense for days. Now, with the CBS spotlight shining, a double-digit lead was not enough. No turnovers in the first half was not enough. Utah State shooting as if blindfolded before halftime was not enough.
The Aggies began the game hitting just two of 13 shots (15.4 percent) and still led. San Diego State rushed in front by 16 points, about 21 hours after trailing by the same number. Instead of tightening the noose, the Aztecs allowed oxygen to flow.
Sam Merrill began to splash jumpers and Diogo Brito’s 3 at the halftime buzzer buoyed confidence that the first team to hit the 30-win mark was beatable.
The difference in this single game, to some: One team’s star missed his biggest shot, while the opposing star buried his. This disturbing trendlines of the last two weeks, two losses and very nearly three others, begs real introspection, though.
Start with junior sharpshooter Jordan Schakel, who finished without a point for just the fifth time in his last 63 games.
“We’ve got to play better than this in the NCAA Tournament,” he said.
Hunting context? Bart Torvik’s “T-rank,” a metric cousin to the revered Kenpom,
ranks the Aztecs ninth best in the country — but a pedestrian 85th since Feb. 17. Remove the jerseys and a team with that number would be a bubble-rider for the NIT.
This group clearly is far more than that, but it’s telling.
“We can’t just look past this loss like it didn’t happen,” Mitchell said.
Some hard truths: Yanni Wetzell, despite a near double-double in the first half, has trouble stitching together two halves. He’s not as sure-handed in traffic or on high-post handoffs as he had been.
The bull’s-eye-maker Merrill, who piled up 27 points and the game-winner with KJ Feagin draping him with 2.6 seconds to play, out-flynned Malachi Flynn. Mitchell forces more shots than offensive flow finds comfortable. The defense, once a baseline-to-baseline nightmare, has shown cracks.
The hoops grail remains
in front of the Aztecs, now a robust if not suddenly wobbly 30-2. But these two weeks, this tournament and Saturday’s stumble all remind that it’s foolish to dismiss the feel of this.
Can San Diego State leverage the next two weeks to find footing and form? Absolutely. In fact, it would hardly surprise with the veteran pieces. If center Nathan Mensah returns, confidence likely will soar.
But … the UNLV loss … the halftime deficits … consistency in flux add to a sample size looming larger by the day. The reliance on Flynn, a growing concern as well. The dependence on the 3. Ditto.
“It’s hard losing the conference championship in the last two seconds of the game,” Aztecs coach Brian Dutcher said. “But we’ll bounce back.”
There’s plenty of bouncing back to do.
“That (winning) shot and us taking this loss just took all the life out of us today,” said Feagin, when asked if a potential No. 2 seed in the more travel-friendly West Regional could be a blessing in bruised disguise. “I wanted to cut down nets. We all wanted to cut down nets.”
The Aztecs now will find out if the NCAA’S selection committee looks past a last-second thriller on a neutral court to a 26-win team as it sorts through bracket royalty. Which Aztecs team will they consider? Which one will show up?
Good? Yes. Great? These days, it’s a lot harder to tell.