Aztecs Suffer Costly Quad 1 Opportunity vs Boise State—Likely Crushing NCAA Bubble Hopes

Not all is well up on the Mesa.

Call it a self-fulfilling prophecy, but my fears came to be. Freddy Kruegar haunted my dreams and turned this SDSU vs Boise State game into a nightmare. Only difference was the ugly trademark sweater was orange & blue and it had a #20 on the back.

The Broncos broke out to a 22-5 lead to start the game Tuesday night and they never relinquished their lead—defeating the Aztecs 86-77. How’d they build such an early advantage? You guessed it, hot three point shooting and another trademark slow start by the Aztecs.

With so much on the line Brian Dutcher’s team came out lethargic and frankly uninterested in competing. It was an ugly performance by the Aztecs who have now lost 4 in their last 5 games.

But this one felt different. Here is what stood out through all the muck and what the consequences of such a bad stretch means for San Diego State’s post season.

Down to Earth

After such an emotionally draining loss to New Mexico in The Pit, Tuesday night saw just the kind of start I was afraid of. The high altitude let down in Albuquerque, mixed with a team struggling to find identity was a bad recipe on a quick turnaround. Easy to see the team was not up to match Boise State’s senior night emotion.

But when you are playing for your March Madness lives as the Aztecs are, should it be this tough?

Yes Boise had the added motivation of revenge for their triple OT loss that was full of controversy against the Aztecs. But SDSU is in a three headed title fight. Or so we thought.

Boise nailed 7 three pointers as a team to end the 1st half. Overall they hit 12 of 25 on the night—good for 48%. Drew Fielder led the team with 33 points, 9 rebounds, 4 blocks and was 16-18 from the free throw line. And this was all done coming off the bench.

It was another case of a versatile big man who ate the Aztecs lunch.

But it was Boise State’s rebounding strength that really came into play. The combination of 2nd chance points and seeing the deep ball go in is demoralizing—we get it. It was such a concern, that before the 2nd half began Coach Dutcher had his team doing rebounding drills during the warm-up.

How embarrassing. Maybe this team responds to embarassment though?

The Broncos being one of the best rebounding teams in the Mountain West, finished the half with an 18-7 edge. By game’s end that comparison doubled to 37-15.

The drills clearly made a difference.

Questionable Comeback

It was a game of runs for sure, so when the Aztecs quietly adjusted by putting down the defensive brakes to climb somewhat back into it, it wasn’t that surprising. Behind Reese Dixon-Waters 23 points, SDSU lingered around to crawl back within seven points for a 34-27 deficit at the break.

To start the 2nd half the Aztecs allowed Boise to surge out of the gates again. This time the Broncos raced out to their biggest lead of the game at 51-31.

All appeared to be lost until the 11:50 mark when Magoon Gwath and Drew Fielder got to know each other a bit better.

The two big men racing towards a rebound, got entangled in a position battle as the ball shot out of bounds. Magoon on the inside track shielded Fielder from the ball and in turn he wrapped his arms around Gwath, pulling him into the Broncos team bench seats.

Feeling himself going down, Magoon shoved Fielder down off of his body and into the seats to release himself. A few stare downs and ‘hold me back-bro’s’ later—the official’s review earned both off-setting technical fouls and raised the temperature in the arena and on both benches.

There were no real visible displays of emotion that heightened the team’s adrenaline. There were no demonstrative acts of rallying the team together after their star got physically bodied by the Boise player having a career night.

Though the team did respond with a ton of maturity. Their play on the court rose to a different level—for a time. The closest they could get however was 69-60.

In the end, Fielder continued to put up record numbers with his performance. Magoon on the flip-side was sentenced to the far end of the bench and never returned.

To Add Insult to Injury

In the first half Miles Byrd went up for a breakaway dunk after a steal. An all too familiar sight this season—he misjudged the take off and missed the one handed attempt. If there was a stat for how many missed one handed jams we’ve seen this year Byrd would be leading in that category.

Pretty tough to defend this one. Wanting to make a play for your team and do it with emphatic fashion is tough to criticize normally. But these aren’t normal circumstances. For a time Byrd has been disciplined on using two hands to ensure that no points we left off the board.

But as many has said online, that missed play is a perfect example of this team’s play all season. Short focus, lack of discipline and a wanting to make the big play instead of the right play. The likely defensive player of the year award winner is a leader that generates opportunities like no other on the team.

But for every one thing this team does right, the discipline to finish just isn’t there right now. On top of the missed play Byrd came down awkwardly with a knee injury and had to be subbed out. He did return to start the 2nd half but was visibly hobbled the rest of the way out.

What Does it All Mean?

No matter how bad this team played on this night, Utah State’s road loss to UNLV highlighted just how difficult it is to win away from home in this league. It also kept SDSU’s slim championship hopes alive–though it would only be a share of the championship at this point.

Colorado State takes their win streak into The Pit Wednesday night. If they can pull out a victory and then New Mexico beats Utah State on the road Saturday night the Aztecs would be looking at a three-way tie and another banner to hang in Viejas.

Of course this is all dependant upon if they can find a way to win on senior night at home vs UNLV.

At this point, with all the hype, expectations, disappointments and just bad basketball this season—that banner would shine just a little dimmer than what the Viejas Arena crowd is used to seeing.