When Mountain West agreed to a new television contract with CBS and Fox Sports, it allowed them to schedule games six days a week on one condition: teams would not have to play twice in 48 hours during the regular season.
That went out the window with the global pandemic, and Saturday’s result was predictably sloppy work with a tip at 1 pm after an exhausting game of overtime on Thursday night, disjointed and discordant, ringing and making noise, with all the grace of an offensive attacker crossbar.
No problems. The state of San Diego did not fall. You can win ugly too.
The 22 Aztecs managed to hold the Boise State 62-58 at the Viejas Arena for their tenth consecutive victory, guaranteeing them a victory – Wednesday at UNLV – to repeat themselves as champions of the regular season of Mountain West and have the embarrassing situation of a title decided by a couple of dropouts, perhaps for the first time in the history of college basketball.
SDSU (19-4) would technically be 14-3 if they beat the rebels in sixth place. The state of Colorado, if it wins the last three, could reach 15-3. And that is what the final classification would say.
Except that Mountain West gave the Aztecs a couple of dropouts when New Mexico dropped its series earlier this month. They are not registered in the official rankings, but are applied only to determine the regular season champion and the rankings in the conference tournament.
It’s as complicated as Saturday’s game.
“Boise is a good team and they made things difficult,” said Aztec coach Brian Dutcher. “They were two good teams, knowing each other’s strengths and doing a good job of trying to get them out. It did not seem fluent or smooth.
“But it was beautiful for a coach.”
Nothing more beautiful than with 1:33 of the end, when Nathan Mensah, of 1.80 m, had the 6-2 guard RayJ Dennis under the basket. Matt Mitchell acknowledged, asked for the ball at the top and pitched to Mensah for an easy two.
After the teams lost 3s, the Broncos reached a point on the Devonaire Doutrive tray 16.3 seconds from the end. From there, it became a matter of making free throws. Jordan Schakel made 4 of 4 and Mitchell 2 of 2 when Dutcher purposely decided to make a foul instead of allowing the Broncos to attempt a potential draw with 3.
“To our credit, this doesn’t always work,” said Dutcher. “It works when you make free throws, and these two guys made timely free throws to guarantee victory.”
Schakel, to his credit, finished with 17 points, despite struggling against problems, taking his third moments in the second half and playing just 18 minutes, 10 below his average. But he did consecutive 3s that gave the Aztecs an eight-point lead with nine minutes to go, which they almost squandered when the Broncos started to give unbalanced 3s, step back.
No one else reached double digits on a day when both teams hit less than 40 percent, had a combined result of 10 out of 44 behind the hoop and had more losses than baskets in the first half. Mitchell was a frequent visitor to the coach’s table, admitting that the left ankle that rolled earlier this month was “persistent” and finished with eight points in 2 of 11 shots two days after scoring 24 (although he had eight rebounds and four steals ball) .
Derrick Alston Jr. of Boise State had a similar experience with dead legs. He went from 29 points on Thursday to just seven (and five losses) on 2 of 12 shots. He did six 3s on Thursday; it was 1 out of 9 on Saturday.
The Aztecs took a similar defensive approach with guard 6-9, keeping new bodies on top of him (four different players covered him), making him take hard kicks and basically hoping for the best.
“We played with him the same way on the first night, but good players can score on top of a good defense,” said Dutcher. “He jumped and gave us some hard kicks in game 1. (Today), it was nothing we did. He had a couple of clean looks, especially the first half, which he just didn’t like. He had an unusual night off, and we benefited from it. “
What should have been a showcase for the two best teams in Mountain West has become a jumble of clearly tired players combined with a referee team ranked 78th, 129th and 134th on the Kenpom metric for Division I referees (who had the Boise State coach Leon Rice, complaining about several calls on his post-game media availability). The result of the break was 24-20 after the teams made 18 baskets and 19 turns, while losing 22 of the 26 attempts at 3 points. No one had more than five points.
The Broncos (18-6, 14-5) did something they couldn’t do in 45 minutes on Thursday night and really led – 2-0 on a floater on the track by guard Marcus Shaver, who didn’t score in the first game and had 13 Saturday. The Aztecs quickly advanced and never retreated, although they could never create much separation.
“The teams got confused and nobody could find a rhythm,” said Mitchell. “Just fighting together, staying and staying together, is the best thing we do.”
The sweep puts Boise State (18-6, 14-5) in fourth place with a game remaining and the uncomfortable possibility of getting the fourth seed in the Mountain West tournament, where the likely opponent in the quarterfinals would be Nevada, who also swept them.
“We played with a good team,” said Rice, whose team closes the regular season at home against Fresno State on Tuesday. “It is a zero-sum game. Someone has to win and someone has to lose. We don’t like that. This does not please us. They are suffering in that locker room. They wanted to win this so badly.
“Let’s go back to Boise, regroup, take all the eggshells and glue them back.”
Remarkable
As is customary on “Senior Citizens Day”, SDSU initiated all senior citizens, meaning that the graduate transfer in Maryland, Joshua Tomaic, received approval for the first time this season in place of the junior Nathan Mensah. He responded with seven points (3 of 3 shots) and four rebounds in 19 minutes, including three offensive clutch boards in the final stretch … The Aztecs are now 50-2 during the Dutcher era, when they have teams under 60 spots. Boise State entered the series with a 77.8 best conference average … SDSU shot 39.7 percent. Boise State fired 35.2 percent, which was slightly less than Thursday … After being beaten by Thursday 14, the Broncos won the battle of the boards by 39-33 … SDSU had just three turns in the second half, after nine in the first… Trey Pulliam made another solid game, with four assists and no turn in 31 minutes.