LARAMIE, Wyo. – During pregame handshakes between coaching staffs, Wyoming’s Sundance Wicks handed San Diego State counterpart Brian Dutcher a parting gift in the Aztecs’ final game at the Arena-Auditorium before they defect to the Pac-12 next season.
It was a silver tube with a green top that he had signed in a black Sharpie.
An oxygen canister.
Nice gesture, but Dutcher and his team didn’t need it.
Dipping into his bench early and often, Dutchers’ Aztecs looked like they were the team acclimated to 7,220 feet of elevation, literally running past Wyoming for a convincing 74-57 farewell win in the high plains Wednesday night that kept them undefeated in the Mountain West.
By halftime, the Aztecs had a 9-0 advantage in fast-break points – and even that seemed a bit low – and led by 13. BJ Davis added an exclamation point by dribbling the length of the floor with six seconds left, around and through the entire Cowboys defense, for a layup that just beat the halftime buzzer.
It’s a lot easier to run when you’re not pulling the ball out of the net, and the Aztecs weren’t.
The Cowboys shot just 24.1% in the first half (5 of 19 on 3s) and went five minutes without a basket. In the second half, they had a stretch with one basket in nearly seven minutes and finished at 30.9%.
At the other end, the visitors from sea level got a balanced scoring effort behind 50% shooting, with six players between seven and Reese Dixon-Waters’ 13 points. Eleven different players scored, 10 had rebounds, eight had assists.
That improves the Aztecs to 12-4 overall and 6-0 in conference, which is either alone on top or tied with Utah State depending on Wednesday night’s late game between the Aggies and Nevada.
That improves Dutcher to 14-1 against Wyoming as a head coach and 5-0 at the Arena-Auditorium, a venue where a pair of ranked Aztecs teams lost in back-to-back seasons in 2013 and 2014, once when they scored nine points in the first half and the following year when they were No. 5 riding a 20-game win streak.
Call him LaraDutch.
“We played pretty well at both ends of the floor,” Dutcher said, holding the oxygen canister. “That’s a pretty good effort against a team that was 9-1 at home and scoring 90 points per game. To come in here and hold them to 57, we’re playing good basketball.
“Three road wins, I don’t care what conference you’re in, are three road wins. We’ve got three of them right now and we’re pretty proud of that.”
They even tempted fate, wearing the all-red uniforms that were “retired” for several years, in part because of the bad memories from the 2014 loss here.
Demons, exorcized.
“I think it’s a mental thing,” SDSU senior Jeremiah Oden, who spent three seasons with the Cowboys, said of being on the other side of the highest elevation in Division I. “When I played at Wyoming, there were teams that came in there and it got to them mentally, and there were teams that just didn’t care.
“I think we just have to tell ourselves that we’re going to be one of those teams that don’t care and just go and hoop.”
San Diego State’s Tae Simmons (8) dunks during the first half of Wednesday’s win over the Wyoming Cowboys at Arena-Auditorium in Laramie, Wyo. (Troy Babbitt, Wyoming athletics)
And that’s what they did. After missing six of their first eight shots, the Aztecs were 11 of 18 the rest of the first half and built a double-digit lead.
Dutcher had already used 10 players before the under-16 minute media timeout, then got a spark when he put in the 11th, freshman forward Tae Simmons (10 points, +22 points in his 14 minutes on the floor).
The Cowboys (11-6, 2-4) tried to rally in the second half and ignite the announced crowd of 4,556, briefly getting within 10 and compelling Dutcher to call timeout as freshman Elzie Harrington fumbled the ball out of bounds.
But the Aztecs had a counterpunch for every Cowboys jab – a Miles Byrd drive that drew two free throws, a jump hook off the glass from Pharaoh Compton, a 3 from Magoon Gwath, a 3 from Taj DeGourville , a jumper in traffic from Dixon-Waters.
“It’s realizing that the way we come out in the second half is going to determine whether we win the game or not,” Simmons said. “The other team is not going to just lie down and die. They’re going to come out with even more intensity, because we’re leading at halftime in almost every game we play. The biggest challenge is us keeping our energy in the second half.
“Teams are going to go on their runs. The coaches, when we had our timeout, told us: ‘They had their run. Let’s cut their water off and we go on ours.’ And that’s what we did.”
San Diego State’s Tae Simmons exerts his will during the first half of Wednesday’s win over the Wyoming Cowboys at Arena-Auditorium in Laramie, Wyo. (Troy Babbitt, Wyoming athletics)
Soon, the margin swelled to 24. Even with a 4½-minute SDSU scoring drought, the Cowboys could only trim it to 17.
The lopsided road victory in a game the Kenpom metric projected the visitors to win by only a point provided a metric boon. The Aztecs climbed from 53 to 46, their highest in a month.
“Today we made an emphasis that we’re up now and we have to keep this lead,” said Dixon-Waters, referencing the blown 24-point margin in the triple-overtime win against Boise State. “They had a run, but we answered. We played together and stayed strong, and not let them come back.”
Notable
Next up: Saturday at Viejas Arena against New Mexico and former UC San Diego coach Eric Olen … Guard Sean Newman Jr. limped off with 13:12 left with what appeared to be a sprained ankle … Nasir Meyer led Wyoming with 13 points but shot 4 of 14 (4 of 13 behind the arc) … The team went straight to the Laramie airport for a charter flight home … Fun fact: A concession stand in the concourse of the Arena-Auditorium sells sushi … It was the fifth time in six games the Aztecs have shot over 50%. They’re 73-2 in their last 75 games when they do … The battle of the boards was tied at 34, but SDSU had a 34-14 edge in points in the paint and 34-12 in bench scoring … Oden had three points and three rebounds against his former team … The officiating crew included Mike Littlewood, who worked the infamous 2003 Aztecs here when Wyoming coach Steve McClain was ejected and gave the crowd a technical foul for throwing a chewing tobacco tin on the floor, among other items … With Wyoming still on university break, the only students they had were fellow athletes. The swim and dive team wore togas, then took them off to reveal their swimsuits for the second half.