SAN JOSE – San Diego State’s basketball team bused to the Denver airport on Sunday morning following its game Saturday night at Colorado State.
The Southwest Airlines flight to San Diego left from Gate C31. The team stopped at C26 and boarded one to San Jose.
It’s the first time in at least 15 seasons that the Aztecs have stayed on the road for back-to-back conference away games, regularly returning home between for one reason or another — most notably, to limit their time in the mountain portion of the Mountain West.
As the team huddled after practice last Thursday, coach Brian Dutcher reminded them that they’d leave for the airport immediately after practice Friday and be gone until the following Wednesday after Tuesday’s game at San Jose State (8 p.m., CBS Sports Network).
“Don’t pack one pair of underwear,” he said.
Two years ago, the Aztecs played at Colorado State on Wednesday and at Air Force, a two-hour drive south, on Saturday. They flew home after the CSU game, were in San Diego for barely 24 hours, then got back on a plane to Denver.
The issue is that the toughest window of altitude acclimatization typically lands during days three or four, and it’s not until two or three weeks that the body produces enough oxygen-carrying red blood cells to fully adjust. The next best thing, experts say, is to arrive within 24 hours of playing, before the body realizes where it’s at.
That’s one of the reasons the Mountain West abandoned the travel partner system from the early 2000s. SDSU and UNLV would both travel to Salt Lake City, for example, one playing at Utah and the other at BYU on Thursday, then switch opponents Saturday. The sea level teams, predictably, had an abysmal record in the second game, which landed on days three or four in elevation.
The conference then went to a Wednesday-Saturday base schedule, with road trips spread throughout the season. Most of the time, you play once at home and once away each week. Only a couple times each season do you face back-to-back road games — and the decision whether to stay or come home.
Dutcher has always come home, a big proponent of sleeping in your own bed. This is the guy who brought his team home from Las Vegas in November during a two-day break in the Players Era Festival (and upset No. 6 Houston when they returned).
“We’ll see how we play,” said Dutcher, whose team dropped to 8-4 and fifth place in the Mountain West after Saturday’s 68-63 loss at Colorado State. “If it was altitude, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. If we were going San Jose State to Colorado State, I’d have gone home between. Even if it was Colorado State and Wyoming and it’s an hour drive (between them), I’d have come home.
“But being back at sea level, I thought if we’re going to do it, this would be the opportunity to do it.”
Another factor was the 8 p.m. tip time in Fort Collins. Even if the Aztecs had used one of their allotted charter legs to fly home, they wouldn’t have arrived until after San Diego International Airport’s evening curfew. They would’ve had to divert to Brown Field in South County instead, getting back to campus at 2 or 2:30 a.m.
Another factor: They just played San Jose State two weeks earlier, so the scout should be still fresh in players’ minds.
So they went to gate C26 on Sunday morning instead of C31 and flew to San Jose, went straight to practice and then to a local restaurant to watch the Super Bowl.
“It was fun to go out and watch it together, have appetizers and a good meal, then come back to the hotel and watch film,” Dutcher said. “This is good bonding time. This is more time than we usually spend together. Usually we practice and then don’t see them.”
Monday featured a morning film session, practice in San Jose State’s Provident Credit Union Event Center, then more film at night. Tuesday, they’ll have a mid-day shootaround in the arena and, yes, more film.
The mood seemed upbeat. Practice ended Monday with the players demanding assistant coaches JayDee Luster and Ryan Badrtalei play defense on a 2-on-2 fast break drill, with players sprinting at them.
(Luster, the former Mountain West Defensive Player of the Year at Wyoming, poked the ball away, and Badrtalei drew a charge.)
“I think it’s honestly good,” senior guard Wayne McKinney III said. “It’s good for the team to be together on a road trip. It helps the chemistry, it helps us stay locked in. It gives us more time to be together, and there are no distractions like being at home.”
That last part is a factor as well, especially for a young roster that, counterintuitively, has played better away from Viejas Arena than inside it this season.
“We have them on the road, they eat together and then we send them to their rooms, and we know they’re not going out,” Dutcher said. “They’re in their rooms, they’re getting naps, they’re resting. And we have more film sessions on the road than we have at home.
“At home, they have parents in town for games, and when they go back to their apartments, their parents may be there. That’s not a bad thing, but they’re not getting the same rest they might get on the road when no one else is there.”
It’s not without risk, however. Boise State stayed on the road two years ago for games at Air Force and SDSU. The Broncos didn’t crack 60 points in either game, escaping with a win at Air Force but getting blown out at Viejas Arena.
In 2016, UNLV played at Colorado State on a Wednesday night and at Wyoming, an hour away, on Saturday afternoon. They stayed on the road, lost by a point Wednesday, then bused over the mountain and lost by two points Saturday. Coach Dave Rice was fired the following day.
Dutcher isn’t in jeopardy of being fired, but his team does sit smack on the NCAA Tournament bubble after being ranked as high as No. 20 in The Associated Press poll in late December. The most recent projected bracket by CBS Sports has SDSU getting the final at-large berth in the 68-team field. In the Bracket Matrix, which aggregates dozens of brackets, the Aztecs are the third-to-last team in.
“I was hoping we’d come here after a win,” Dutcher said at practice Monday. “But I think it’s more about how we’re playing right now and that we have to get better than staying on the road to do it. I’m more concerned about our performance. If we were playing really great basketball right now and then we dropped two, I’d say, ‘We should have gone home.’
“But we have to play better. Whether it’s at home or on the road preparing, we just have to play better.”
