Viejas Arena is an excellent basketball facility.
But it has become a house of horrors for San Diego State’s women’s basketball team this Mountain West season.
Tall and physical Wyoming never trailed Saturday afternoon, defeating the Aztecs 64-51 at Viejas to drop the hosts to 2-4 this season in home conference games.
“We have to take better advantage of our home court,” Aztecs head coach Stacie Terry-Hutson said after her team fell to 7-5 overall at home this season compared with an 8-2 overall record that includes a 4-2 road record in conference play.
“The road has always been our Achilles’ heel. This year … I’m disappointed in the loss. I thought we could have played a little better. But I don’t want to overreact because we’ve had two good weeks.”
The Aztecs went into Saturday’s game coming off three straight wins against teams slotted ahead of them in the Mountain West standings — including a 59-58 win over UNLV two Saturdays ago that snapped the Rebels’ run of 23 straight conference wins.
But the Cowgirls (14-9, 8-3) outplayed the Aztecs in most facets of the game Saturday while completing a season sweep of San Diego State.
Wyoming was led by 6-foot-4 center Allyson Fertig, who connected on 10 of her 14 attempts from inside to score 20 points — just over her Mountain West-leading average of 19.1 points a game. But Wyoming, which had three starters as tall or taller than the Aztecs’ tallest starter, also outscored the hosts 21-3 from 3-point range and broke even on turnovers.
“We can’t have Fertig score 20 and give up 21 on 3s,” said Terry-Hutson, whose defensive plans against Fertig had to be altered when the 6-3 Cali Clark drew two quick fouls. “Wyoming is tall. We’re quick and shifty and can shoot the ball well, but we’re small. We need pressure, and I was disappointed in the pressure.”
SDSU also appeared fatigued as the game wore on. For the fourth time this conference season, San Diego State was catching a team coming off a bye that had a full week to prepare for the Aztecs. Wyoming led 16-12 after a first quarter during which the Aztecs committed six turnovers and got off only eight shots in 10 minutes. Then Wyoming went on a 9-0 run in the middle of the second period to run the lead to 42-29 with 6:23 to play in the half.
The Aztecs cut into the lead with a 10-4 run behind the play of reserves Kaelyn Hamilton and Jazlen Green. And back-to-back baskets by Adryana Quezada allowed the Aztecs to pull to within six at 49-43 with six minutes to play. The hosts would never draw closer.
SDSU’s biggest problem, however, was putting the ball in the basket from short range throughout the game.
“Our shot selection was pretty good,” Terry-Hutson said. “Our success rate on layups was horrendous. We missed too many easy ones when we worked too hard to get those shots. We lost 12 to 15 easy points on short misses.”
But forward Kim Villalobos, who led the Aztecs with 10 points and five rebounds, saw a problem with the Aztecs’ approach.
“We need to be consistent in our efforts, not just in the first or third or fourth quarter,” Villalobos said. “There needs to be more sense of urgency throughout.”
