LOS ANGELES — Three days after upsetting one of college basketball’s perennial powers, Utah’s young team discovered how much more it needs to grow.
San Diego State, ranked 20th nationally, overwhelmed the Utes from the opening tip and finished with an 80-52 rout Saturday in the first game of the Basketball Hall of Fame Classic’s double-header at the Staples Center.
“We got our butts kicked. It looks every bit like an NCAA tournament team to me. There’s a reason why they’re undefeated.” — Utah coach Larry Krystkowiak said
With the victory, the Aztecs (12-0) remained one of four undefeated teams in the nation.
“We got our butts kicked,” Utah coach Larry Krystkowiak said. “It looks every bit like an NCAA tournament team to me. There’s a reason why they’re undefeated.”
Defense is perhaps the biggest reason. SDSU entered Saturday’s game ranked fifth nationally in scoring margin (20 points), eighth in scoring defense (56.6 points allowed per game), 10th in 3-point shooting defense (25.8%) and 12th in field-goal defense (36.7%).
Against the Utes (9-3), SDSU generated 17 turnovers, converted them into 17 points and forced Utah to shoot just 38.5% from the floor, 22.7% in the first half.
Timmy Allen led the Utes with 21 points but made just three of nine attempts inside the 3-point arc — and did not score his first basket until 7 minutes, 34 seconds had expired. The rest of the Utes missed 25 of 34 shots from the floor, 14 of 18 from 3-point range.
Both Gach contributed eight points. Rylan Jones added five points and just two assists. Riley Battin failed to record a point until 6:17 remained before finishing with four points.
“That’s actually what a team looks like when it’s committed to defending and making things difficult,” Krystkowiak said. “Individually, they’ve got some elite defenders. You don’t find too many weak links out there. Their coaching staff does a great job of taking away what you’re trying to do. It looks to me like they enjoy playing defense, and not many teams do.”
The Aztecs even sabotaged Utah’s inside game. SDSU outscored the Utes in the lane, 42-10, and out-rebounded them, 37-29. A pair of 6-foot-10 forwards, Yanni Wetzell from New Zealand and Nathan Mensah from Ghana, each scored 14 points. Wetzell added six rebounds while Mensah grabbed five.
“They got the best of us in the paint,” Krystkowiak said. “I didn’t expect that to happen. They have an inside presence. We’ve got three freshman right now who are playing the ‘five’ spot. We have a ways to go in terms of the center position, throwing them the ball. In retrospect, we probably should have tried to throw it in there a little more, but even when we did today, it didn’t work out very well.”
SDSU didn’t only rely on its height inside.
“In the first half, there were probably five 50-50 balls that were bouncing around, and it just seemed there was a little more want-to on the Aztecs’ part,” Krystkowiak said. “They beat us to a lot of those balls that were rolling around, bouncing around in the paint.”
The Utes began the game by missing their first five shots and six of their first seven. The Aztecs, however, made six of their first eight in building an 18-5 advantage with 6:18 gone. Utah scored only two points in the first 6:03.
Allen made a 3-point shot and two free throws to draw the Utes within 18-10. But with SDSU holding a 22-13 lead with 8:53 left in the first half, Utah scored only four points on free throws for the next 8:16.
The Aztecs held a 33-19 lead 51 seconds into the second half, but Allen and Gach made 3-pointers 56 seconds apart to narrow the deficit to 33-25 with 17:52 to play. However, the Utes went without a point for the next 4:13, as SDSU used a 19-7 surge to build a 52-32 advantage with 10:10 to play. The Aztecs’ Malachi Flynn scored a team-high 16 points.
“We would have had to be really good to be in this ballgame and get a chance to win,” Krystkowiak said. “They just guarded the crap out of us and we’ve got a long way to go from an offensive point of view.”