San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
AZTECS FLY HIGH TO DEFEAT AIR FORCE
As Air Force scored a layup on a back cut once, twice, three times in the opening minutes Saturday night, San Diego State coach Brian Dutcher stood impassively on the sideline, his players looking like they were running in deep snow from the lung-scorching 7,081 feet.
No panic. No timeout. No need. This was his 23rd game at Air Force since coming to SDSU in 1999. He knows it takes a few moments sometimes to adjust to the thin air, to catch your second wind.
He also knows two years ago, the Aztecs opened the game turnover, turnover, turnover, turnover … and led 52-16 at the half.
And the Aztecs caught their second wind Saturday night at Clune Arena all right, erupting for a 24-5 run late in the first half and winning 70-60 despite using an eight-man rotation when Adam Seiko stayed home ill.
That kept SDSU (15-4, 6-1) in sole possession of first place in the Mountain West with Utah State, one of three teams tied at 5-2, coming to Viejas Arena on Wednesday.
A year ago through seven conference games, the Aztecs were 4-3. They’re 6-1 now, with the lone blemish a 76-67 loss last Saturday against New Mexico that required numerous things to go wrong and ended a 16-game home win streak.
“That’s the curse of being a coach,” Dutcher said. “All I think about are the four losses. That’s all I try to wrap my head around: How did we lose this game or that game? You only obsess over the losses. But the great news is, we’re 4-0 on the road in this conference and that’s really hard to do.
“I hated to drop a home game, but we more than made up for it by being 4-0 on the road.”
The Aztecs finally started making some shots after a 4 of 17 start, but they really didn’t need to. Sometimes the best offense was chucking up a shot, missing, then rebounding it — finishing with 15 offensive boards that they converted into 18 points (or a quarter of their offensive output).
Air Force second-chance points: zero.
“We know Air Force plays hard but we are a little bigger than them, and that had to be our advantage,” said Keshad Johnson, who had a doubledouble (13 points, 10 rebounds). “The more possessions you can create for your team, the better chance you have of scoring. So that’s what we tried to do, keep going hard on the glass and get our shooters more opportunities.”
It was a welcome night of balanced scoring instead of having Matt Bradley do the heavy lifting. Bradley also had 13 points. Darrion Trammell had 12, finally making a 3 after being 0 of 10 in his last two games. Lamont Butler had 11.
The Aztecs were a mere 4 of 15 behind the arc after making 11 in last month’s meeting with the Falcons at Viejas Arena, but they compensated with an impressive night at the line: 22 of 23, without a miss until the closing seconds.
You read that right: 22 of 23.
The first miss was by Johnson with 38 seconds left.
But he went 6 of 7 from the line a week after being 0 of 4 in the New Mexico loss.
“I knew we weren’t going to make 11 3s again against them,” Dutcher said of the Falcons, who rank among the national leaders in 3-point defense. “That’s the most they’ve given up to anybody all season. So we found another way to win.”
Another telling stat: six SDSU assists.
You don’t get assists on put-backs off offensive rebounds or on free throws, and those two things accounted for 40 of their 70 points.
The Falcons (12-8, 3-4) shot 46.2 percent overall and made eight treys, but they had a three-game win streak snapped because they couldn’t rebound, losing the battle of the boards 45-25. Going 4 of 10 from the line — 4 of 13 if you count missed front ends of one-and-ones — by a bunch of guys who are supposed to be able to shoot didn’t help, either.
The game matched the teams picked first and last in the 11-team Mountain West preseason poll, but you wouldn’t have guessed it from the opening minutes.
It started propitiously enough for the Aztecs, winning the opening tip, missing two inside shots, getting two offensive rebounds and finally having Nathan Mensah put one in. Two possessions later, they scored again off an offensive board for a 4-0 lead. Easy, right?
Air Force scored on its next four possessions — three on back cuts for uncontested layups out of its Princeton-style offense — and led 9-4. Even worse, there weren’t any stoppages in play, so the first media timeout came two minutes late and the Aztecs couldn’t sub their starters gassed at 7,081 feet.
Halftime score: SDSU 39, Air Force 24.
What happened?
The Aztecs made shots, draining 8 of 11 late in the first half, scoring on 10 of 12 possessions and waxing the Falcons with a 24-5 run.
But things are never easy at Clune Arena — Dutcher equates it to a “trip to the dentist” — and they weren’t again. The Aztecs suddenly went cold again, going 6½ minutes in the second half with out a point and 7:10 without a basket as the Falcons trimmed an 18-point deficit to seven. (Sound familiar? They went nearly 10 minutes without a basket three nights earlier at Colorado State.)
A few minutes later, it was down to six.
And then to five with a minute to go.
Air Force decided to play the foul game not yet being in the double bonus and sent Micah Parrish to the line for a one-and-one with 50.4 seconds left. Make, make.
On this night, if you were the Falcons, that’s the last place you wanted SDSU shooting from.
Notable
The scoreboard on the central video board malfunctioned with 4:58 left, stuck on 57-48 when it was 59-51. They stopped using the video board for the rest of the time and instead used an oldschool lighted scoreboard on the upper east side of the arena.
• Mensah rolled an ankle landing after tipping in a miss by Aguek Arop with 4:21 to go. He hobbled back down court but was replaced and didn’t return.
• Air Force was led by Jake Heidbreder with 17 points.
• Fast-break points: SDSU 12, Air Force 2.
• The Aztecs were plus-23 points in Parrish’s 24 minutes, best on the team. Arop was next at plus-18, following by Jaedon Ledee (six points, seven rebounds) at plus-16.