For those wondering what San Diego State’s basketball team might look like with a shorter rotation, they got their wish Wednesday night.

The 11-man rotation became nine when starters Magoon Gwath and Elzie Harrington were both scratched with injuries.

The result: The Aztecs looked pretty darn good, rolling to another Mountain West victory, this one 73-50 against Colorado State at soldout Viejas Arena that kept them in first place in the Mountain West at 9-1 heading into Saturday morning’s showdown at second-place Utah State.

“As a coach, I looked at this, even though it’s a home game, as a trap game,” Dutcher said of Wednesday’s matchup with the ninth-place Rams sandwiched between a pair of Saturday games on big-boy CBS. “We’re in the middle of four games, three of them on the road.

“The one thing you can’t do is lose that one home game. It’s hard enough to win on the road.”

The trap door was bolted shut, it turned out, despite playing without a pair of starters.

Gwath’s absence was expected. He has now missed three games with a hip injury and Dutcher hinted the 7-foot forward is “still probably a week or two out” from returning.

Harrington initially was listed as questionable on the Mountain West’s availability report Tuesday night but was switched to “out” two hours before the 7:30 p.m. tip.

“Just something he’s been dealing with all year,” Dutcher said. “If you’ve watched, he’s got that lower leg taped every game. He’s just in a lot of pain. We’re trying to rest him and see if that will help the pain a little bit, and hopefully he’ll get to the point where he’s feeling better.

“I don’t know if he’ll be ready to go Saturday. I know he wants to play Saturday. But I don’t know if he’ll be that much better from a pain level.”

BJ Davis made his first start of the 20-game season in place of Harrington and had nine points to go with five assists and two steals after failing to score in a season-low 13 minutes Saturday at UNLV.

Reese Dixon-Waters led the Aztecs (15-5) with 16 points on 7 of 9 shooting, many of them on tough, contested jumpers at the shot clock buzzer. It’s his 10th straight game in double figures.

“Reese is getting better,” said Dutcher, whose team shot 54% and won its 108th straight home game when making at least half its shots. “When he starts rhythm dribbling and raising up for 3s, he’s hard to deal with. He’s getting in a good rhythm to his game – 7 for 9, super efficient, 2 of 2 from 3. And he was really good at the defensive end again.”

Pharaoh Compton added 15 points on 6 of 7 shooting in just 18 minutes. Miles Byrd had 10 points, only the second time he’s reached double figures in the game following his seven career 20-point performances.

The real problem for the Rams (12-9, 3-7), though, was at the other end of the floor.

They had no one in double figures for the first time since December 2020. That’s because they shot a season-low 33.3% — after entering the day 19th in the country at 50.2% – and had 17 turnovers that the Aztecs converted into 32 points.

It was their lowest shooting percentage in a conference game since 27.9% on Jan. 8, 2022 … also against SDSU at Viejas Arena.

According to the Kenpom metric, it was SDSU’s third stingiest defensive performance of the season against a Division I foe.

“Just taking pride in our defense,” Compton said. “Just knowing that if we step up and lock in on that side of the floor, no team can compete with us. … I feel like we’re buying into the coaching more, buying into what the coaches are telling us for the game plan and sticking with that through the whole game.”

The Rams entered the night ranked 365th out of 365 Div. I teams in tempo, averaging under 62 possessions per game and a tedious 19.3 seconds per possession.

Their plan was simple. Run the shot clock down, make you play defense for 20 or 25 seconds, shorten the game and hope to hang around deep into the second half.

They were down six at halftime.

Then they started the second half like this:

Fouled Byrd on an attempted 3 at the shot-clock buzzer, turned it over, watched Dixon-Waters drain a fallaway jumper at the shot-clock buzzer with a defender draped on him, then burped up an airball.

They were down 14 before they scored in the second half, then 20, then 25.

With 2:08 left, we had a Thokbor Majak sighting, much to the delight of the remaining fans in Viejas Arena.

“It was what we were supposed to do, knowing that we’re the better team, honestly,” Compton said. “Watching the film and knowing if we execute the game plan, Colorado State hasn’t been too good this year, it’s just trying to make a statement with this win. And we did.”

Notable

• Next up: at Utah State on Saturday in a CBS-televised game with a rare morning tip (11 a.m. local time, 10 a.m. PST).

• Sitting courtside was Final Four legend Lamont Butler, who received a lengthy standing ovation when he was introduced during a first-half timeout. Butler was set to play for the Atlanta Hawks’ G League affiliate but tore his ACL and is sidelined for the season.

• After a string of no-name officiating crews, the quality has increased notably in recent games. Wednesday’s crew: Nate Harris, Kevin Brill and Amy Bonner. All three worked games in the NCAA Tournament last season. Dutcher challenged an out-of-bounds call in the first half that was reversed after video review.

•  The Aztecs have won 40 straight when holding opponents under 60 points. They shot 50% or better in the first half for the eighth time in the last 10 games.