San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
Winning is only thing in March for SDSU hoops
What do we know about the San Diego State men’s basketball team with a couple of weeks left in the regular season? What questions feel unanswered and which areas seem unsettled as the stretch run sports a 5 o’clock shadow?
What is the takeaway and moving-forward clues after a 45-43 win Wednesday at nine-win Fresno State — no typo, no peach baskets involved — that felt more like passing a kidney stone than a Mountain West victory?
For one, they keep winning.
“That’s the beauty of this team, we can win in any kind of game,” coach Brian Dutcher said. “That’s what I love about them. At the end of the day, we’re 21-5. I don’t think anybody would shake their head at that.”
Peeling the onion on postseason futures can be tricky in the final weeks, even with so much résumé in the rearview mirror. Players get hot or cold in a blink. Shots that clanked or arced true flip the script. Clutch moments await just as surely as sloppiness dooms. Trendlines exist, though. The Aztecs are deep, the country’s 24th-best team in bench points. They can slow big runs by stifling 3-pointers, standing No. 11 in percentage defense after vaulting 10 spots following Fresno’s absurd 2-for-25 night from beyond the arc.
They avoid the bad loss (none). They win the close ones, going 7-2 in games decided by seven points or fewer.
“That’s pretty darned good,” Dutcher said. “It’s a paper-thin margin between winning and losing. We’ve been on the right side of that most of the time.”
Just as true: If they’re not more sure-handed when the NCAA Tournament arrives, it’ll be a short visit to the madness of March.
San Diego State stands 114th in assist-to-turnover ratio and tied for 94th in
turnover margin. In the last five conference games, the Aztecs recorded nearly as many lost possessions as assists (69-67). In wins over BYU, Stanford and Ohio State, they finished plus-16.
“We have to take better care of the ball,” Dutcher said. “When we do, we’re a really hard team to beat.”
The rest of the wrinklecausing list includes allowing second-half runs, for starters, and inconsistency from individual players. Keshad Johnson and Jaedon Ledee have played better. Darrion Trammell continues to struggle.
Some statistics amount to pretzeled logic, no matter the slicing and dicing.
Though the Aztecs’ overall scoring offense has dipped to 139th in the nation and field-goal percentage has plummeted to 138th, the respected Kenpom.com metrics place the adjusted offense (points scored per 100 possessions, a measure of efficiency) at No. 46, a solid number for a defensefirst program.
And speaking of defense, Kenpom’s adjusted number places them 20th.
“That’s about as good as we’ve been offensively (in a while),” Dutcher said of the Kenpom offensive positioning. “When we struggle to score, we get stops. We seem to do what’s required.
We don’t care what that is. We’re one of the few teams in the country, when we run into a cold shooting night, we can still win.
“That’s just culture. That’s just believing it.”
Still, one cold night coupled with a defensive brain cramp or two can make tournament dreams wither. There probably are not wholesale fixes needed for the Aztecs, given the 21 wins and inside track to the conference title. It’s more like a band that seeks to tighten things up, transforming something disjointed at times into polished music.
A little less drums. A little more bass.
“We keep preaching the message, we have another level we can climb to,” Dutcher said. “We’re 21-5, but we can be better. We can play better. We need to believe that.
“When we say that, they don’t shake their head and think, ‘He’s crazy. We’re good enough.’ They believe it.”
Some of it, including the grimace-inducing trip to Fresno, simply represents
the shared ups and downs of college basketball. There simply are too many games and variables to make most nights standing-ovationworthy concertos.
It’s more about toughening up, developing calluses and banking experience for the bigger spotlight.
“Look at Tennessee losing (three of four, all to teams one game over .500 in the SEC) before beating No. 1 Alabama,” Dutcher said.
As of midweek, no team in America had played fewer games against teams considered Quad 4 — the lowest classification of teams based on game location and NET rankings — than San Diego State. The Aztecs have played one, winning it.
Current AP top-10 teams Purdue, Texas, Baylor and Tennessee had played six, Virginia seven, Arizona eight and Houston nine.
“We’ve played a really competitive schedule,” Dutcher said.
Some blemishes will prove nothing more than cosmetic style points, but some could dent or derail March fates. The tale still is being told for this bunch.
Why are they still winning?
“I guess it’s just we have a veteran team,” Dutcher said. “Veteran teams find way to win.”
Winning’s the thing, of course. And winning in March is the thing.