LOGAN — For those basketball fans excited about a matchup of the two best defensive teams in the Mountain West Conference, Thursday night’s game between San Diego State and Utah State certainly delivered.
The Aggies stretched their winning streak to nine straight games with a hard-fought, 57-45 victory over the Aztecs at the Spectrum.
“It was a bit of a rock fight out there. It was hard for anyone to get scores, and that’s what we said coming into the game,” USU head coach Craig Smith said.
Utah State (10-3 overall, 7-0 in the Mountain West) held the Aztecs to just 31.5% shooting for the game, including 5 of 21 from from 3-point range.
While the Aggies were better offensively — 43.3% from the field as a team — they needed to bring the defensive effort inasmuch as they only outrebounded San Diego State (9-3, 3-2) by two and committed 18 turnovers. Utah State also went to the free-throw line only twice, and both of them came courtesy of a second-half technical foul on SDSU head coach Brian Dutcher.
“San Diego State is a very good team,” Smith declared. “I thought we defended at a very high level, as did they. To be able to hold a team like that to 45 points and that kind of a shooting percentage, I thought our guys just did an excellent job of communicating and being on point.
“Guys, they’re good,” Smith added. “It’s just so hard to score on them. We know every play that they have, and they know every play that we have, even the new sets that they haven’t seen.”
Coming into the game, USU led the Mountain West in scoring defense (60.5 ppg) and defensive field goal percentage (38%), just better than the Aztecs in both categories (60.7 ppg, 39.1%)
Offensively, junior guard Brock Miller led Utah State with 16 points while going 5 for 11 from the floor, including 4 of 10 from 3-point range.
“Brock Miller brought a great spark for us,” Smith said. “He had a great look to him all week. It just felt like he was going to have a good game. ... He played really well on the offensive end, but he might have been even better defensively.”
Utah State center Neemias Queta racked up 14 points, 16 rebounds, three steals, one block and four turnovers in 33 minutes, but no other Aggie scored more than six points in the victory. However, senior forward Alphonso Anderson scored his six points on the strength of two 3-pointers in the final two minutes of the first half, helping USU go on a crucial 10-2 run before halftime.
Thursday’s game was the first between the two Mountain West rivals since the championship game of the 2020 Mountain West tournament. The Aggies pulled off a 59-56 upset of the fifth-ranked Aztecs in that contest, which ended up being the final game of the season for both teams due to the pandemic.
“It was a low-scoring game, but at the end of the day, I thought we were the toughest team. It just came down to who was going to be the toughest team down the stretch, and I thought we responded well to a lot of things that went on.” — USU’s Brock Miller
Even though last season’s stars Sam Merrill (USU) and Malachi Flynn (SDSU) are now playing in the NBA, the two teams still battled just as hard as they did last March in Las Vegas.
After trailing 33-20 at halftime, the Aztecs managed to trim Utah State’s lead down to as few as five points on two occasions early in the second half, but despite some sloppy ballhandling, the Aggies outscored San Diego State 12-8 over the final seven minutes to secure the victory.
“It was a low-scoring game, but at the end of the day, I thought we were the toughest team,” Miller said. “It just came down to who was going to be the toughest team down the stretch, and I thought we responded well to a lot of things that went on.”
San Diego State’s chances of a comeback suffered a huge blow when forward Matt Mitchell went down with an apparent knee injury with 5:47 left and the Aztecs trailing by 11. SDSU’s leading scorer at just under 16 points per game, Mitchell appeared to twist his left knee while going up for a breakaway basket, an attempt that was blocked by USU freshman guard Rollie Worster.
Mitchell sat out the remainder of the game with ice on his knee, leaving him with 10 points on 4-of-11 shooting. Junior forward Nathan Mensah (13 points, nine rebounds) was the only other Aztec to score in double figures.
Mitchell’s status is particularly noteworthy since the Aztecs and Aggies will play again on Saturday, and that game tips off at 11:30 a.m. in order to accommodate a national television broadcast on CBS.
“We have to play again in just 36 hours against the same team, and it will be two really good teams going at it,” Smith said. “Every time we play each other it’s a very physical game.
“That early start means that the pregame meal will be at 7:30 a.m.,” Smith pointed out. “These guys have been on Christmas break, so I’m not sure they’ve even seen 7:30 a.m. in the last two or three weeks.”