
RENO, Nev – Youth played experience on a snowy Saturday night in the Sierras.
Youth prevailed.
Youth dominated.
San Diego State took one of college basketball’s least experienced rosters to the Lawlor Events Center, where some of its most veteran teams have struggled over the years. And won 69-50 – won convincingly – against a Nevada team that ranks seventh in Division I in experience at an average of 3.1 years per player.
The Wolf Pack’s starting lineup: fourth-year junior, fifth-year senior, fifth-year senior, fifth-year senior and sixth-year senior. The first guy off the bench is a fifth-year senior, too.
SDSU: A freshman and two sophomores start, and another two freshmen and a sophomore are part of the regular rotation.
Maybe ignorance is bliss, though, not knowing, not living the horror stories from previous visits to Lawlor. They have no mental scar tissue.
These Aztecs (13-5, 6-3) did what the last two teams could not, and in the process righted a listing ship that was rapidly taking on water.
You can make an argument that their three worst performances of the season came in the previous four games – a blowout loss at New Mexico, a home loss against a UNLV team that promptly dropped its next two, and a buzzer-beating overtime escape on Wednesday that kept Air Force winless in the Mountain West (and would have been statistically the program’s worst loss in the 29-year history that the Kenpom metric has kept records).
It also rejuvenated their fading NCAA Tournament hopes. Just weeks after having the Aztecs firmly in his projected bracket, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi on Friday listed SDSU among his last teams in with several upwardly mobile teams breathing down their necks.
“We had to come out here and make a statement, and that’s what we did,” said redshirt freshman Magoon Gwath, who made his own personal statement with 15 points (7 of 7 shooting), 13 rebounds (four offensive), a steal and a pair of monster blocks. “We stayed locked in on the defensive end for a lot longer than we have been, and it turned out well for us.”
And not so well for Nevada (11-9, 3-6), which managed just 21 points in the first half and didn’t break 30 until inside nine minutes to go … in the game. With seven minutes left, the Wolf Pack was 10 of 40 overall, 3 of 20 behind the arc and trailed by 21.
“We got beat by a really good basketball team that played really well,” said Wolf Pack coach Steve Alford, whose team is 5-8 after a 6-1 start. “They defended us at a really high level. … But we missed a lot of shots, a lot of open shots. If you tell me we’re going to get to the line 22 times against a team that’s very physical and they get there only eight, and we outrebound them offensively 18-12, and we have only 10 turnovers, I would never guess we’re getting beat by 20.”
Conversely, if you told SDSU coach Brian Dutcher that leading scorers Miles Byrd and Nick Boyd would have a combined four points on 2 of 11 shooting in the first half – and finish a combined 2 of 13 behind the 3-point arc – he would never guess they’d win by 19.
“We shared the ball better,” Dutcher said. “We worked on not shooting long, hard shots right away and move it. I thought we did a good job following the game plan.”
The primary sharers were … Byrd and Boyd. They had nine and six assists, respectively. The Aztecs finished with 21 assists – their season high against a Div. I opponent – against just 10 turnovers (and only three in the second half).
All 10 of the rotation scored, highlighted by Gwath becoming the first SDSU player with a double-double without missing a shot since Roy Kruiswyk against SMU in 1998 (and the Aztecs lost that game).
“I felt I was due for a good game,” Gwath said. “Glad it was tonight.”
“We ran a couple plays to get him lob dunks to get him a couple easy looks, where he didn’t have to earn everything,” Dutcher said. “But then he earned some. He earned it on the glass, a 3-pointer. He played well.”
It wasn’t just Gwath, though. Another freshman, Taj DeGourville, had 14. Byrd, a sophomore, finished with 11 after a slow start. Fellow sophomore Miles Heide had six rebounds and the Aztecs were plus-21 points in his 20 minutes on the floor (second only to Gwath’s plus-23).
Or look at it this way: The Aztecs bench had 27 points. The Nevada starters had 23.
Or another way: The 1.24 points per possession was their second best this season against a Div. I opponent and the best since Dec. 11, when they scored at a 1.31 clip at home against Cal Baptist.
The Aztecs had their best start to a game this season, winning the opening tip and finding BJ Davis for a 3 from the left corner, then getting a baseline spin followed by a reverse layup by Jared Coleman-Jones for a quick 5-0 lead.
They wouldn’t score again for 7½ minutes, a mess of six missed shots and four turnovers.
The Wolf Pack made them pay with a 13-2 run, only for the Aztecs to respond with a 13-0 run on 3-pointers by three different players. They never trailed again.
By halftime, the SDSU lead was 28-21 despite having three more turnovers and shooting five fewer free throws and off nights from their top two leading scorers.
The question then became whether they could sustain that in the second half.
The answer: They could, and then some.
“We got a lead,” Dutcher said, “and it’s always easier to play with a lead with a young team. And we held onto the lead, built the lead. We weren’t pressing from behind.”
Notable
The team planned to use one of its charter legs to fly home immediately after the game, with another game coming Tuesday at home against San Jose State (allowing them two full days of practice) … The Aztecs now are home for nearly two weeks, with a pair of games at Viejas Arena followed by a midweek bye. The next road game isn’t until Feb. 8 at Colorado State … The Aztecs improved to 3-6 in their last nine games above 4,500 feet. It was their first win in altitude in the last two seasons against somewhere other than Air Force … Pharaoh Compton’s sister was in attendance, sitting just across the visitor’s tunnel from the Nevada student section. The two sides exchanged increasingly animated banter throughout the game.