LOGAN, UtahLOGAN, Utah — Altitude.
Tired legs.
A one-day prep against unfamiliar schemes from a new coaching staff.
A full day of travel.
A rare off night for its vaunted defense.
A Utah State basketball team smarting from four straight losses and a 1-5 conference record, frustrated, frenetic, ferocious, formidable.
Not a good recipe for San Diego State at the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum on Wednesday night, losing 75-57 against Utah State and finding itself in fifth place in the Mountain West at 3-2 just six weeks before the conference tournament – a full three games behind first-place Boise State at 7-0.
“Just like football, just like football,” Utah State students chanted in the closing minutes, referring to the Aggies’ 46-13 win over SDSU in the conference championship last December.
It could be worse. A year ago, the Aztecs left Logan at 3-3.
The sour experience sweetened their season. They held players-only meetings, retooled the offense and vowed not to lose again. And didn’t for 14 games, until running into Syracuse and Buddy Boeheim in the NCAA Tournament.
This will look worse on paper than it probably was, suffering their most lopsided defeat this season against a team that had lost four straight. Most of them were close and several were without a full roster. The four home losses this season are by a combined 10 points.
The Aggies (12-9) also had played zero games in the previous six days. The Aztecs were playing their third in five.
“They put six days of work to good use,” coach Brian Dutcher said. “They moved at a pace they hadn’t moved at all year. They were sensational. No one has moved this fast against us. This pace is Utah Jazz-like, not Utah State-like. They moved and they moved.
“They took those six days and decided, ‘Here’s how we’re playing.’”
From tip to buzzer.
With 30 seconds left and a 16-point lead, the Aggies still had all five starters on the floor crisply running offense. With seven seconds left, Sean Baristow buried a jumper just inside the arc to make it 18.
“They acted like it was the first possession of the game,” Dutcher said. “They didn’t hold the ball and let the clock run out. They made their minds up they were going to attack all game, and they attacked us to the very end. Five starters in at the end of the game, they were going at us.”
Said Aggies forward Brandon Horvath: “It just feels really good to get off that losing streak, especially like how we were losing, just really close games to really good teams. We were in practice every day saying we’re right there and we just kept pushing, kept working, and it feels really good to beat a really good team.”
The Aztecs (11-5) hung around for 20 minutes, trailing 32-31, then played like they spent halftime outside shivering in the 14-degree weather, cooling down and stiffening up. The Aggies opened the second half with a 13-2 run by simply beating the Aztecs down the court.
Twice the Aggies missed shots in transition. Twice they grabbed the rebound and scored before the Aztecs knew what happened – two of nine offensive boards.
Number of offensive rebounds by SDSU: zero. (You read that right, zero.)
Matt Bradley had another scintillating performance with 19 points on 8 of 12 shooting, meaning he has made 18 of 23 shots in the last two outings, to go with six rebound, five assists and two steals. Chad Baker-Mazara came off the bench for his best game as an Aztec with 15 points.
But they got no help. Nathan Mensah, who typically struggles in altitude, was in foul trouble most of the night and limited to 19 minutes. Aguek Arop dinged his bad hip and didn’t play in the second half. Trey Pulliam, after an encouraging performance against UNLV, had no points, no assists and four turnovers in 27 minutes (and the Aztecs were minus-25 points with him on the floor). Lamont Butler had five turnovers.
“Maybe other guys will turn it over,” Dutcher said, “but your two point guards can’t turn it over nine times.”
Offense, though, wasn’t the primary problem. Defense was.
SDSU’s switching, swarming, suffocating schemes require energy, and the Aztecs clearly didn’t have it at the requisite levels … playing for the third time in five days … after a two-week COVID break … during which they had only two full-out practices. That’s another way of saying they were gassed.
Utah State shot 49.1 percent, the best this season (and only the third opponent to top 40 percent) against a defense ranked third nationally in the Kenpom metric. The 10 3-pointers are the second most surrendered this season, behind 11 by Michigan. The 75 points are a season high.
Or look at it this way: SDSU’s first four conference opponents all were under 32 percent and 56 points.
Baker-Mazara: “I don’t want to make any excuses. They were just executing at the highest level, performing better than us. They caught on fire and went on multiple runs. We couldn’t figure out how to stop them. We’re No. 3 in the nation in defense. We’ve got to go back to those roots.”
Keshad Johnson: “We take that personal. We have to go back to the drawing board and fix it. We promise it won’t happen again.”
The Aztecs trimmed the margin to seven with four minutes to go and had Baker-Mazara on the line for a one-and-one. He missed, and five seconds later Butler fouled Steven Ashworth (17 points), an 87 percent career free-throw shooter. He didn’t miss.
The Aztecs would score only two points the rest of the way to the absolute glee of the roaring Spectrum crowd.
“They played a great game,” Baker-Mazara said. “Glad for them, they got the W. Now they have to come to Viejas (on Feb. 15). We’re not going to forget about this, I’ll tell you that.”
Notes
Next up: A rare weekend off before hosting last-place New Mexico (0-7) on Monday night, then the rematch at Colorado State next Friday … It was Utah State’s most lopsided win against SDSU since 101-57 in 1962, their first meeting … The 18-point loss is SDSU’s largest since No. 17 Nevada beat it by 28 on March 2, 2019 … SDSU was outrebounded 35-21 after outboarding six of its previous seven opponents … Bradley became the first SDSU player since Malachi Flynn to have at least 19 points, six rebounds and five assists … Justin Bean had a big night for the Aggies: 13 points, 13 rebounds, five assists, two steals.
