San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
Columnist Bryce Miller: SDSU shows grit in win.
At halftime of Saturday’s basketball game between the Aztecs and Boise State, you wondered if the teams were auditioning for a role in a “Hoosiers” remake, where each and every Hickory basket represented win-loss gold.
Teams that combined for more turnovers (19) than baskets (18) bumped and banged as the scoreboard snoozed. On 26 3-point attempts, they made four. No player scored more than five points. The pace halfway through inched toward a 1950s-era final in the 40s.
The game lacked so much flow, it begged for a urologist.
Style points hardly matter, though, when teams enter with a combined 36-9 record and a conference title teetering in the balance. The No. 22 Aztecs proved winning is a bruising, wellearned habit with a 62-58 victory at Viejas Arena.
“It didn’t look free-flowing or smooth, but it was beautiful to a coach,” Aztecs coach Brian Dutcher said.
Stitched into San Diego State’s 10-game winning streak is a focused, unblinking resolve — no matter if it’s against a collection of Cowboys, Bulldogs or, on Saturday, Broncos. The Aztecs have not trailed in 205 minutes of second halves and overtime during the streak, and for just 18:52 in the last 405 minutes on the court.
Boise State led 2-0, then never again.
Gorgeous … at least in the eyes of ball-dribbling beholder.
“The first half, the teams had each other flustered and nobody could find a rhythm,” said senior forward Matt Mitchell, who finished just 2-for-11 shooting but added a sleeverolling eight rebounds and four steals. “… The ‘W’ is in our side of the check box. That’s all that’s ever really mattered to me.”
There’s an underrated toughness to this group, which still fights to escape the enormous shadow of last season’s 30-2 group.
Many pointed out that the first eight wins in the streak came against the bottom half of the Mountain West. You can’t make your own schedule, of course. In the last nine games, however, the Aztecs won every game by at least 12 points with an average victory margin of 24.8 points — third best in the country during that span.
So, here came Boise State. Not another tomato can to kick. Not even close.
In an overtime game Thursday, preseason player of the year Derrick Alston torched the Aztecs for 29 points. Twenty-nine hours later, defensive peskiness delivered him the wreckage of a 2-for-12 outing as he hit just two of 12 3-point attempts.
Bend, sure. Break, not so much.
“Sticking and staying together is the thing we do best,” Mitchell said.
You could see a difference in the teams down the stretch.
The Aztecs kept moving the ball around, pass after pass, hunting for highpercentage shots. The Broncos launched stepback 3s. Perhaps the biggest basket of the game also was the most unselfish, as Mitchell threaded a highlow post pass to Nathan Mensah for a layup with 1:33 to go and the Aztecs clinging to a one-point lead.
San Diego State hit nine of 10 free throws in the final 6:44, including all six in the last nine seconds.
“It was frustrating for everybody,” Dutcher said of the lurching start. “This team has a lot of resolve and grit, found a way to make timely plays and stops when we needed them and came out with a really hard(fought) victory.”
The quest to sweep the Broncos wasn’t about style points. It wasn’t about painting pretty pictures or tying brightly colored bows. It wasn’t about highlight reels or causing teammates to spring from the bench like kangaroos.
It was about winning, by every elbow and means possible.
“It doesn’t matter who we’re playing or where we’re playing, we’re trying to play to our standard,” Dutcher said of his team, now 19-4 and 13-3 in the Mountain West. “I think this team has embraced that.”
Celebrating stick-toitiveness remains rare in our days of instant sports gratification. The Aztecs not only value it, they live by it.
Guard Jordan Schakel found himself pinned to the bench in foul trouble with five points, midway through the second half. The senior, who played just nine minutes before returning, hit back-to-back 3s and finished with a game-high 17 points.
“This game, everybody was energized because of what was at stake,” Schakel said.
The ability to out-grind the grinders along the way means the Aztecs will continue to climb. They entered the game with a NET ranking of 22 and stood as just one of 12 teams nationally in the alphabet-soup Top 25 of the RPI, BPI and KPI.
Despite losing three starters a year ago, San Diego State is a robust 49-6 since the beginning of last season.
“We were ready to go, but Boise’s a good team,” Dutcher said. “They make things hard. A lot of the game looked disjointed and that’s because we guard hard.”
Picture perfect.