RENO, Nev. – This team.
Three days after blowing a 24-point lead and winning in triple overtime, San Diego State’s bipolar basketball team unveiled its latest trick: going down 14-2 Tuesday at the Lawlor Events Center … and roaring back to beat Nevada 73-68 and remain atop the Mountain West.
The Viejas Arena floor was unusually and inexplicably slippery on Saturday.
The Aztecs, though, somehow maintained their footing in the figurative sense Tuesday and didn’t fall.
“We say all the time as a team that we have to stay composed and resilient,” said sophomore guard Taj DeGourville, who had maybe his best game since being demoted to the bench. “Especially on the road, we have to stick together.”
He shrugged and added: “We had no doubt about it.”
Fans watching this team all season might have, but the Aztecs (9-4) suddenly find themselves tied with Utah State at 4-0 atop the conference heading into a home game Saturday against 1-3 Fresno State.
The team so maligned all season maybe, might, possibly, potentially can see a faint light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.
“A lot of times,” coach Brian Dutcher said, “wins and losses don’t dictate how you’re playing. You just have to see it and feel it. I’m starting to feel as if we’re playing better basketball.”
Over the game’s final 30 minutes, the Aztecs outscored the hosts 62-45 and held them to 23.9% shooting. The Wolf Pack had 10 baskets in the opening 10 minutes … and only 11 the rest of the way.
“They missed some shots they made in the first half,” Dutcher said. “They make six 3s a game. They hit that number at halftime. The second half, to go 2 of 15, that was the deciding factor. … We rely on our defense. For them to shoot 22% in the second half, you would say we won with our defense.”
It wasn’t their prettiest win of the season. It might have been their gutsiest, though.
San Diego State’s Miles Byrd dunks during the first half of Tuesday’s game against the University of Nevada in Reno, Nev. (University of Nevada athletics)
Here’s how the closing minutes unfolded after the Wolf Pack (11-3, 3-1) erased a six-point deficit and took a 66-65 lead:
The Aztecs went ahead by a point when Reese Dixon-Waters followed his own miss and had a chance to grow it off a BJ Davis steal kicked ahead to Miles Byrd. But Byrd missed the layup amid heavy contact – it appeared the defender undercut him – as coach Brian Dutcher screamed: “That’s a foul, that’s a foul.”
Davis, though, got another steal, and the Aztecs ran the clock down before the 6-foot-2 guard drove into traffic and chucked up a desperation left-handed airball as it neared zero.
The hero? Miles Heide, who grabbed the rebound, scored before the shot clock expired and was fouled.
“Those are timely plays that you don’t draw up,” Dutcher said. “Those are plays they have to make that are the difference in games.”
Heide missed the free throw that would have made it a two-possession game, but the Wolf Pack’s attempt at a tying 3 rattled in-and-out at the other end. Davis was fouled and made both free throws – 71-66 with 17 seconds left.
Freshman Elzie Harrington added a pair of free throws with nine seconds left, his only points of the night in his first college game at elevation.
After shortening the bench late in regulation and 15 minutes of overtimes Saturday against Boise State, Dutcher had used his full 11-man rotation five minutes into the game in the rarefied air of Reno and got a balanced performance from pretty much everyone.
Byrd led with 14 points (to go with five assists), but Dixon-Waters, Davis, Heide and DeGourville all had 10 each. The Aztecs shot 51.9%, which compensated for attempting five fewer shots, making four fewer 3s and converting five fewer free throws.
The Wolf Pack entered the night averaging 20.5 made free throws per game, best in the Mountain West and eighth in the nation. It finished with 18 (on 20 attempts) but struggled to make shots when guarded – missing their final eight attempts behind the arc.
“We knew from the jump we were going to be a good team,” DeGourville said. “We just had a rough patch, and every team is going to have to get through a rough patch. That’s what we’re doing right now, keep on stringing wins together.”
Notable
The return game against Nevada at Viejas Arena is Feb. 14 … Magoon Gwath didn’t start for the second straight game and finished with seven points (3 of 3 shooting) and five rebounds in 19 minutes amid foul trouble … Fresno State transfer Elijah Price led Nevada with 17 points (12 on free throws) to go with 10 rebounds and four steals. He drew 11 fouls, an astronomical number … The bench scored 15 of SDSU’s first 19 points and finished with 37, compared to just nine by Nevada’s bench … In attendance was Mountain West commissioner Gloria Nevarez, who lives in the Lake Tahoe area (and not at the conference headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo.) …
The Mountain West got another lowly-rated crew from the Big Ten officiating consortium that services the conference: Alfred Smith, Jim Bruno and Ian Caldwell. None is in the top 100 of the Kenpom ref rankings. Smith and Bruno usually work low-level Midwest leagues, and Caldwell is a former Big West official who has never cracked the Kenpom top 200 in his 13-year career … The halftime entertainment was the Red Panda, the Chinese acrobat who flips bowls onto her head while riding a tall unicycle.