JUST LATEST SLOPPY FINISH
Bad loss to Boise State exemplifies Aztecs’ season-long inability to close out games
Three thoughts on No. 18 San Diego State’s 66-60 loss at Boise State on Tuesday night:
1. Closing costs
When you get to March, it’s hard to make sweeping strategic adjustments to a college basketball team, to change your mentality, to transform your identity. You pretty much are what you are.
And this is what the Aztecs are:
A group of respectful, smart, unselfish, hard-working, veteran, talented players who genuinely play for the team ahead of themselves, who are elite defenders, who are vastly improved on offense, who go nine deep, who have the rare combination of size, strength and athleticism that allows
them to play with anyone in the country … and who have trouble closing.
Acknowledge it. Accept it. Agonize over it.
Sometimes, like Saturday at New Mexico, that flaw isn’t fatal.
Sometimes, like Tuesday at Boise State, it is.
“I’ve said from the start: We have a really good team (but) we’re not good enough to win if we don’t play well,” coach Brian Dutcher said after the latest late collapse. “Some teams are good enough to win even if they don’t play well because their talent is so good. We’re talented but we have to play well to win, and we didn’t play well enough down the stretch to win.
“We put ourselves in a position to win but we didn’t close.”
We saw it at the NCAA Tournament last year, of course, when the Aztecs infamously blew a nine-point lead with 2:30 to go in regulation against Creighton with a deluge of turnovers and missed free throws, then lost in overtime.
We saw it in November against Arkansas at the Maui Invitational, up four inside
15 seconds to go, an ill-advised intentional foul that led to two free throws, a turnover against the press, a tip-in at the regulation buzzer, a loss in OT.
In all six losses this season, the Aztecs have led in the second half. Over the final five minutes of regulation in those games, they’re a combined minus-27 points.
We’ve seen it with increasing regularity as the season has progressed, though, sometimes pulling a victory out of the fire, sometimes getting burned.
Jan. 14 vs. New Mexico: Ahead with eight minutes left, lose 76-67.
Jan. 18 at Colorado State: Up six inside with 1:30 left in regulation, go to overtime but win.
Jan. 31 at Nevada: Up one with 4:20 to go, outscored 16-6, lose 7465.
Feb. 8 at Utah State: Up 16 at the half, lead 62-52 with 5½ minutes left, don’t make another basket, outscored 9-1 down the stretch but hang on to win 63-61.
Feb. 15 at Fresno State: Up seven with less than eight minutes to go, make one basket the rest of the way, hang on to win 45-43.
Feb. 25 at New Mexico: Up four inside 20 seconds to go, foul on a 3point attempt, turn it over against the press to go down one with six seconds left, win on Lamont Butler’s 3 at the buzzer.
Feb. 28 at Boise State: Up eight inside five minutes to go, outscored 14-0, lose 66-60.
Maybe it’s a conditioning issue, because the Aztecs have the Mountain West’s deepest bench and starters playing the fewest minutes and yet seem to continually run out of gas against teams with guys logging 35-plus minutes. Maybe it’s simply a mental thing, now in their heads, now half-expecting a collapse, as a wide array of experienced players make uncharacteristic, bonehead mistakes in crunch time.
Or maybe it’s both. Fatigued bodies lead to fatigued minds, and fatigued minds are known to do silly things.
“Just concentrate,” Butler said Tuesday night. “We have to concentrate better at the end of games. We’re capable of it. There have been games where we’ve been really good at the end of games. We just have to concentrate longer, especially down the stretch.”
Not exactly what you want to hear in March.
2. Punked
The focus will be on SDSU
shooting 0 for 5 with two airballs and four turnovers over the final 4½ minutes, but the more telling number might have been five. That’s how many offensive rebounds Boise State had down the stretch.
The Broncos finished with a 3524 advantage on the boards, 14 on the offensive glass and a 17-5 edge in second-chance points, by far the largest margin against SDSU this season. Even more impressive, it came after they were crushed on the glass 53-32 in Saturday’s overtime loss at San Jose State and 3628 by the Aztecs in the 20-point drubbing at Viejas Arena on Feb. 3.
“They just punked us on the boards,” Broncos guard Marcus Shaver Jr. said of the first meeting. So what changed?
Coach Leon Rice explained: “The way I approached it was, I said: “Hey, our issues are our issues until we fix them. There’s going to be no emotion from me. I’m going to show you what we did wrong. And then I’m going to leave the room, and you guys decide what you want to do, because you don’t have a chance against San Diego State if you can’t rebound with them.’
“I said, ‘Let me know. We won’t even do a scouting report if you guys aren’t going to fix it.’ I had all the coaches leave and let them solve it. And they did.”
Down eight with 4:42 left, Max Rice went to the line for a pair of free throws. He made the first and missed the second, only for Tyson Degenhart to slip between Nathan Mensah and Butler into the lane and tip the rebound to Naje Smith in the left corner.
Smith quickly fired a pass to Rice, who had repositioned on the left wing, for a 3-pointer to compete a four-point play and halve the lead.
A couple minutes later, now up four, the Broncos had a 70-second possession after grabbing three offensive boards — one when Mensah and Micah Parrish appeared to have position but Chibuzo Agbo knocked it off Mensah’s hand, one on an airball, one on a shot that hit the front rim and bounced directly down.
The Broncos didn’t score. But by the time the Aztecs finally forced a shot-clock violation and got the ball back, there were just 41 seconds left.
“It goes back to the boards,” Rice said, “it really does.”
3. Selection Sunday
In the grand scheme of things, SDSU’s late collapse was good for the Mountain West. Because Boise State needed that win.
It was the highest-ranked team they’ve defeated at home in nearly 25 years. More importantly, it halted a slide in NCAA Tournament projections after Saturday’s stinging overtime loss at San Jose State that, according to ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi, lowered them among the last teams in the field.
With a game at Utah State (14-2 at home) looming on Saturday and an historically underwhelming record in the conference tournament, the worry-meter was cranked up in the Treasure Valley.
“I don’t get a say in that, but it sure feels like it,” Rice said when asked if beating No. 18 SDSU put the Broncos into the tournament. “I mean, that (SDSU) team, their numbers are their numbers for a reason, their ranking is their ranking for a reason. They’re a great team. This league has had some great teams, and they’re right there.
“That gives you another Quad 1 (win) and does great things for your numbers.”
So SDSU and Boise State are in. That leaves Nevada, Utah State and New Mexico.
Nevada (22-8, 12-5): The Wolf Pack were cruising along, safely in most projected brackets, until stubbing their toe at last-place Wyoming on Monday and dropping into the danger zone. Their NET remains solid at 35, but the rest of their résumé is shaky: 40 in Kenpom, 67 in ESPN’s BPI, 72 in
Sagarin. It also doesn’t help that their best nonconference win is (take your pick) Sam Houston or Tulane. A home win Saturday against UNLV (which beat them Jan. 28) plus at least one win in the Mountain West Tournament probably is enough, but they’ll be nervous on Selection Sunday.
Utah State (22-7, 11-5): At 30, the Aggies are higher in the NET than Nevada but they close with a pair of tough games, at UNLV and home against Boise State. Their problem is they have no Quad 1 wins and a brutal Quad 3 loss at home against 202 Weber State. Their best nonconference win away from the altitude of Logan is against 15-15 Washington State on a neutral court in Hawaii. Win their last two and reach the conference tournament final, and they could get off the bubble. Otherwise, hello NIT for a second straight season.
(21-9, 8-9): The Lobos were once 14-0 and the nation’s last unbeaten team. They’re 7-9 since and sixth in the Mountain West. They have road wins over two teams in the NET top 16 (Saint Mary’s and SDSU), but they played a soft nonconference schedule and have four Quad 3 or 4 losses — just killers on a résumé. Their metrics don’t look the part, either: 46 in Kenpom, 48 in NET, 74 in Sagarin, 75 in BPI. Translation: It’s win the conference tournament, or bust.