LAS VEGAS — San Diego State had won 17 straight quarterfinal games at the Mountain West men’s basketball tournament, an incredible feat.
The Aztecs did not make it 18. And it might cost them dearly.
The 62-52 loss against Boise State on Thursday afternoon at UNLV’s Thomas & Mack Center doesn’t automatically mean they’re out of the NCAA Tournament. But it does mean the next 71 hours until the Selection Show on CBS will be an uneasy, helpless experience.
There’s nothing they can do now but wait, watch and hope.
Wait until 3 p.m. Sunday afternoon.
Watch other teams on the proverbial bubble play in their conference tournaments.
Hope they lose.
Most of the bubble has been falling their way, with losses by Ohio State, Indiana and Xavier. But Texas A&M blowing a late lead in overtime – and then the game in double OT – against bubble resident Texas is the kind of result that will churn their stomachs. That came a couple hours after North Carolina, another bubble team, held off Wake Forest to keep its hopes alive.
“This is something we’re not used to, leaving Las Vegas this early,” assistant coach Dave Velasquez said. “None of us, not our fans, our players, our coaches.”
The Aztecs (21-9) swept the regular-season series against Boise State (23-9) but couldn’t win a third. And probably didn’t deserve to after an absolutely dreadful performance on the boards in their fifth game without 7-foot Magoon Gwath, the Mountain West freshman of the year and defensive player of the year.
The Aztecs outscored the Broncos 49-44 on first-shot attempts. And were outscored 18-3 on second-chance points following offensive boards.
The Broncos had 13.
The Aztecs had four.
Boise State’s best offense, it turned out, was jacking up a missed 3 – they were 11 of 40 – and then collecting the rebound. It happened over and over.
And over and over and over.
Then the Aztecs offense went cold, as it’s been prone to all season for endless stretches, and they were cooked. They had no baskets – like, zero – over the final nine minutes. Even when they got to the line, they struggled, going 3 of 8 down the stretch.
Second-half points: 19.
Nick Boyd continued his torrid form, finishing with 20 points on 6 of 12 shooting. But no one else had more than seven, and the other two starting guards, Miles Byrd and BJ Davis, combined for 11 points on 3 of 17 shooting.
Boise State had four players in the double figures, led by 16 points from San Jose State transfer guard Alvaro Cardenas, who beat SDSU for the first time in nine career games.
After not practicing since hyperextending his right knee on Feb. 22 at Utah State, Gwath came out of the tunnel for pregame warmups … wearing his No. 0 white jersey, pink sneakers and a black brace. He warmed up with the team, running, shooting jumpers, working on post moves.
It was a nice decoy. He took a seat on the bench and never subbed in.
Gwath had six of SDSU’s 10 blocks in the 64-47 Aztecs win at Viejas Arena on Feb. 15, and in his absence you figured the Broncos would attack the rim considering they were a combined 10 of 48 from behind the arc against SDSU this season.
What happens? The Broncos’ first 11 shots were all 3s, and their first 2-point basket didn’t come for 10 minutes against SDSU’s gapped up man-to-man defense.
The Broncos made four of those 11 attempts before going cold, and an early 12-7 lead was soon a 33-22 deficit thanks to a run that included a Pharaoh Compton fast-break dunk off a lob purposely thrown by Boyd off the backboard.Boise State was reeling, managing just one basket over seven minutes.
Then again, these are the 2024-25 Aztecs and they routinely struggle, for whatever reason, in the closing minutes of the first half. And did again.
San Diego State’s Pharaoh Compton scores against Boise State’s Emmanuel Ugbo during the quarterfinal of the Mountain West Conference Tournament in Las Vegas on Thursday, March 13, 2025. (K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Boise State forward Tyson Degenhart (14 points, seven rebounds) made a 3 from the right side – his first in 13 attempts against the Aztecs this season – and point guard Alvaro Cardenas followed that with a 3 of his own to cut the halftime margin to a more manageable five.
The Broncos followed that with a 7-0 run to open the second half and had the lead again.
From there, it was the back-and-forth, grind-it-out game that we’ve grown accustomed to when these teams clash.
SDSU went ahead on a pair of 3s by Boyd, then he got his third foul and went to the bench. Boise State reclaimed the lead on a three-point play by Andrew Meadow on what replays indicated was a brutal blocking call against a stationary Wayne McKinney by veteran official Kevin Brill. SDSU went ahead again on an improbably twisting fast-break layup by Boyd. Boise went ahead on a pair of free throws by O’Mar Stanley after a silly foul by Compton 40 feet from the basket put Boise State in the bonus with 7:18 left.
Someone had to crack, and it was the Aztecs.
Degenhart hit a 3 to break a 49-49 tie, and the Broncos never trailed again.
Notable
Boise State advances to play top-seeded New Mexico in the semifinals Friday night … SDSU was projected as a 68-67 winner by the predictive Kenpom metric, which is usually what the sportsbooks follow. However, Vegas oddsmakes installed Boise State as a 1.5-point favorite that was bet up to 2.5 points by tipoff, an indication that most folks were banking on a Broncos victory … Boise State switched up its starting lineup from the last meeting, inserting Stanley and freshman Pearson Carmichael for Emmanuel Ugbo and RJ Keene II.
ReplyForward
Originally Published: March 13, 2025 at 4:51 PM PDT
