PHOENIX – The old Aztecs are back.
The team that plays stingy, suffocating, stifling defense.
The team can’t rebound.
The team that just … can’t … make … a … shot.
The combination worked really well for 18 minutes Saturday night and reasonably well for 25, and then not so well for the final 15 as No. 1-ranked Arizona blew open a tight game to rout San Diego State 68-45 in the Naismith Hall of Fame Series at Phoenix’s Mortgage Matchup Center.
“We knew it would be a challenge,” coach Brian Dutcher said. “We gave them a half but we didn’t give them a game.”
The Kenpom computer metric projected a 14-point Wildcats win. SDSU led by seven late in the first half, trailed by one early in the second half … and lost by 23. And fell five spots in Kenpom to 52.
The result is the Aztecs (6-4) will close the nonconference portion of their schedule without a marquee win and, barring something spectacular during the Mountain West regular season, will need to win the conference tournament in March to secure a berth in the NCAA Tournament for a sixth straight year.
“Our at-large resume, people will say, ‘Boy, they challenged themselves,’” said Dutcher, whose team also faced No. 2 Michigan. “But we didn’t get the signature win against one of these teams that you need to get yourself in the tournament if you’re a non-power conference school. … We beat Oregon, but we lost our opportunity against Baylor, Michigan and Arizona. We had to win one of those games.”
Just as the final score in their last game – an 81-58 home win against Air Force on Wednesday – wasn’t indicative of how poorly they played in the opening 20 minutes, this didn’t reflect how well they did.
The prevailing positive, in a backhanded compliment sort of way, is that the Aztecs played with No. 1 into the second half and would have pushed the 11-0 Wildcats even deeper had an offense that has been so effective all season not gone Siberian frigid.
The Aztecs shot a miserable 27.6% in the first half, then 25% in the second. They were 1 of 14 on 3s, and that one banked in.
Their effective field-goal percentage of 27.2% (which accounts for 3s being worth more than 2-point baskets) was their eighth worst in the 30-season Kenpom era of statistics and their worst in nearly a decade.
The Aztecs were averaging 81.8 points. They didn’t crack 40 Saturday until inside five minutes to go, once again getting little from their preseason all-conference trio of Miles Byrd, Reese Dixon-Waters and Magoon Gwath (who shot a combined 5 of 23) plus a 1 of 12 night from BJ Davis that ended his seven-game streak of double-figure scoring.
“We got good shots,” said Dixon-Waters, their top scorer with eight points on 2 of 10 shooting. “We got the shots that everybody usually makes and usually shoots. They just didn’t fall tonight.”
Dutcher quickly interjected some context: “They’re bigger and longer, so we had a lot of the same shots but over a higher contest.”
The other positive, of course, was the defense emerging from its season-long hibernation. The Wildcats were averaging 90 points and had scored less than 84 only once (and that was 69). Saturday, they shot a season-low 37.9% after entering the night seventh nationally at 52.7%. No one scored more than Jaden Bradley and Anthony Dell’Orso with 11 apiece.
But it doesn’t much matter how poorly you shoot if you go get the rebound, which the Wildcats did at will. They finished with a 52-28 margin on the boards, 20 coming on the offensive end that led to a 14-4 advantage in second-chance points. Tobe Awaka had 15 rebounds alone in 22 minutes off the bench.
Arizona forward Koa Peat (10) dunks over San Diego State guard Elzie Harrington (3) during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game, Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)
“We just had to find our rhythm and flow a little bit,” Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd said. “Give San Diego State credit. They came out with a game plan where they were really forcing us to play outside in. They were really heavy in that first (defensive) gap, they were going under a lot of our ball screens. We really haven’t faced that much conviction with that defense, so I think it just took a while for our guys to get comfortable in the game.
“Sometimes you have to make a decision. Maybe today is not the day we shoot it as good as we’d hope. There are lots of ways to win. If you can win in the effort areas, which we did today, that will go a long way.”
Things were going well for the Aztecs deep into the first half, so well that at one point they were shooting 6 of 22 and still leading the nation’s No. 1 team.
How’d they do that?
The Wildcats don’t rely on the 3-point shot, ranking in the 300s nationally at just 6.4 makes per game, and SDSU dared them to cast away behind the arc by going under ball screens. And they missed their first nine before Dell’Orso made one with 30 seconds left in the first half.
The answer to your next question: Tyler Kumpf.
He’s the official who “whacked” Dutcher during Arizona’s run late in the first half while Wildcats guard Jaden Bradley was on the line. It was only his second technical foul in nine years as a head coach.
Who is Kumpf and why was he working a game with the No. 1 team in the country?
Good question. He has spent most of his career scuffling around the Missouri Valley, Horizon League and Conference USA. He’s currently No. 63 in the Kenpom officials rankings, an indication he’s not regularly assigned to big games. He had worked exactly one SDSU game – in the opening round of the 2016 Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu, when Steve Fisher was head coach – in his 16-year college career, meaning he had little familiarity with Dutcher’s affable personality or deep respect among coaches and officials alike.
The technical foul seemed to catch Kumpf’s two partners, Mike Littlewood and Steve Anderson, by surprise, but it resulted in two free throws and further whipped the partisan crowd into a frenzy.
Score before the T: 27-23, SDSU.
Score after the T: 45-18, Arizona.
“Usually to get one, you have to swear and have to use your arms or antics to show them up,” Dutcher said. “I didn’t feel like I did a whole lot of any of that. I just wanted him to tell me why he T’ed me up, and he wouldn’t tell me that. He was off it at that point. He didn’t want to talk to me.”
The Wildcats rode that energy to an 8-0 run that turned a seven-point deficit into a 28-27 lead at intermission. They kept going, dominating the boards, taking care of the ball (only one turnover in the second half after 10 in the first), making some 3s, holding the Aztecs to five points over nearly 10 minutes.
It was their sixth straight win by 20 or more points, the first time an Arizona team has done that since the 1940s.
“It probably doesn’t get enough attention, but we’re also a pretty good defensive team,” Lloyd said. “I thought our guys did a great job of just being sticky and having constant ball pressure on these guys and being in the right spots in the gaps. I mean, you hold a team that good to 26% shooting, man, that’s impressive.
“That really was the story of the game.”
Notable
The Aztecs fly home Sunday morning, then face Division III Whittier on Monday in a rare 1 p.m. weekday tip to accommodate the visitors and their holiday break … That will be their final nonconference game. The Mountain West season resumes Dec. 30 at San Jose State … Midway through the second half, Kumpf whistled a ball out of bounds for Arizona. Anderson overruled him and gave it to SDSU. Wildcats coach Tommy Lloyd challenged the call and won, improving to 3-0 on the season … Stanford beat Colorado 77-68 in the event’s first game, thanks to a school freshman record 32 points from Ebuka Okorie.