San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
SCRAPPY AZTECS TAKE UGLY GAME
SDSU one win away from MW title, with help of two forfeits
When the Mountain West agreed to a new television contract with CBS and Fox Sports, it allowed them to schedule games six days a week on one condition: Teams wouldn’t have to play twice within 48 hours during the regular season.
That went out the window with the global pandemic, and the result Saturday was a predictably sloppy slog with a 1 p.m. tip following an exhaustive overtime game Thursday night, disjointed and discordant, clanking and clattering, with all the grace of an offensive lineman on the balance beam.
No problem. San Diego State didn’t fall off. It can win ugly, too.
The No. 22 Aztecs held off Boise State 62-58 at Viejas Arena for their 10th straight victory to put them one win — Wednesday at UNLV — from repeating as outright Mountain West regular-season champions and having the awkward situation of a ti
tle decided by a pair of forfeits for maybe the first time in college basketball history.
SDSU (19-4) technically would be 14-3 if it beats the sixth-place Rebels. Colorado State, if it wins its final three, could get to 15-3. And that’s what the final standings would say.
Except the Mountain West awarded the Aztecs a pair of forfeits when New Mexico opted out of their series earlier this month. They’re not recorded in the official standings but applied only to determine the regular-season champ and seedings in the conference tournament.
It’s as convoluted as Saturday’s game.
“Boise’s a good team, and they made things hard,” Aztecs coach Brian Dutcher said. “It was two good teams, knowing what each other’s strengths are and doing a good job of trying to take them away. It didn’t look free-flowing or smooth.
“But it was beautiful to a coach.”
Nothing prettier than with 1:33 left, when 6-foot-10 Nathan Mensah had 6-2 guard Rayj Dennis switched on him under the basket. Matt Mitchell recognized it, called for the ball at the top and lobbed to Mensah for an easy two.
After the teams traded missed 3s, the Broncos pulled within a point on a layup by Devonaire Doutrive with 16.3 seconds left. From there, it became a matter of making free throws. Jordan Schakel went 4 of 4 and Mitchell 2 of 2 as Dutcher decided to purposely foul instead of allowing the Broncos to attempt a potentially tying 3.
“To our credit, that doesn’t always work,” Dutcher said. “It works when you make free throws, and both these guys made timely free throws to secure the win.”
Schakel, to his credit, finished with 17 points despite battling foul trouble, picking up his third moments into the second half and playing only 18 minutes, 10 under his average. But he made backto-back 3s that gave the Aztecs an eight-point cushion with nine minutes to go that they nearly squandered when the Broncos started making step-back, hand-intheir-face, off-balance 3s themselves.
No one else reached double figures on a day when both teams shot under 40 percent, were a combined 10 of 44 behind the arc and had more turnovers than baskets in the first half. Mitchell was a frequent visitor to the trainer’s table, admitting the left ankle he rolled earlier this month was “lingering,” and finished with eight points on 2 of 11 shooting two days after scoring 24 (although he did have eight rebounds and four steals).
Boise State’s Derrick Alston Jr. had a similar experience on dead legs. He went from 29 points Thursday to just seven (and five turnovers) on 2 of 12 shooting. He made six 3s Thursday; he was 1 of 9 Saturday.
The Aztecs took a similar defensive approach on the wiry 6-9 guard, keeping fresh bodies on him (four different players covered him), making him take tough shots and basically hoping for the best.
“We played him just as hard the first night, but good players can score over good defense,” Dutcher said. “He bounced up and made some hard shots over us in Game 1. (Today), it wasn’t anything we did. He had a couple of clean looks, the first half especially, that just didn’t go in for him. He had an uncharacteristic off shooting night, and we benefited from it.”
What should have been a showcase for the Mountain West’s top two teams became a grind of clearly tired players combined with an officiating crew ranked 78th, 129th and 134 in the Kenpom metric for Division I referees. The halftime score was 24-20 after the teams had 18 baskets and 19 turnovers while missing 22 of 26 3-point attempts. No one had more than five points.
The Broncos (18-6, 14-5) did something they couldn’t in 45 minutes Thursday night and actually led — 2-0 on a floater in the lane by guard Marcus Shaver, who was scoreless in the first game and had 13 Saturday. The Aztecs quickly pulled ahead and never trailed again, although they never could create much separation.
“The teams had each other flustered and nobody could find a rhythm,” Mitchell said. “Just fighting through it together, sticking and staying together, is the thing we do best.”
The sweep knocks Boise State (18-6, 14-5) into fourth place with one game remaining and the uncomfortable possibility of getting the fourth seed at the Mountain West tournament, where the likely quarterfinal opponent would be Nevada, which also swept them.
“We played a good team,” said Broncos coach Leon Rice, whose team closes the regular season at home against Fresno State on Tuesday. “It’s a zero-sum game. Somebody’s got to win, and somebody’s got to lose. We don’t like it. It doesn’t sit well with us. They’re hurting in that locker room. They wanted to win that so bad.
“We’re going to get back to Boise, regroup, pick up all the eggshells and glue them back together.”