San Diego State and Boise State played 40 minutes of basketball Saturday night at Viejas Arena, but if you want to distill their crucial Mountain West game into a single snapshot, it is this
Magoon Gwath flying from behind against Tyson Degenhart, the conference’s preseason player of the year, and pinning his layup against the backboard, then scraping it off to start the break.
“I was guarding Degenhart,” guard Nick Boyd said. “I was just trying to bait him, to give Magoon time to get there. If you watch it, I’m just standing in front of him, standing in front of him. I knew he was going to block it. I didn’t know he was going to pin it and get the rebound.
“That was crazy.”
That’s what Gwath did to Degenhart’s shot, and what the Aztecs did to the Broncos.
Saturday’s 64-47 rout might not be their best performance of the season — hard to top beating No. 6 Houston in overtime or blowing out No. 25 Creighton — but it will get strong consideration for the most complete and little argument for the most timely.
Put simply: This team needed this.
“The last couple games, we started out slow,” said Boyd, who had a career-high 24 points on just 14 shots. “We were just trying to keep that momentum and keep focused on starting out the right way, the right energy, being physical, being tough.
“When we’re focused, I don’t think there are a lot of teams in the country that can beat us — our length, our athleticism, just the ion we play with. When we have that swagger from the tip, we’re just a different team. We saw that tonight.”
Since winning at Boise State on Jan. 4 and blowing out Air Force at home four days later, the season had become a grind – a double-digit loss at New Mexico, a rare home loss against UNLV, a string of ugly wins against the Mountain West’s bottom-feeders after overcoming dangerously large deficits.
The turning point came Tuesday, at halftime at the Provident Credit Union Event Center at San Jose State, trailing 37-20.
The coaches came in and drew up some offensive adjustments on the whiteboard, then said a few encouraging words and returned to the court. The players didn’t follow them, calling an impromptu meeting with their season — and likely their NCAA Tournament hopes — hanging in the balance.
“We talked it over and came out there with the right mindset,” sophomore guard BJ Davis said.
They erased the 17-point deficit in a mere four minutes and outscored the Spartans 49-29 in the second half.
And then carried that energy, that enthusiasm, that effort, into Viejas Arena on Saturday night for a showdown against a team that had won six of the last eight meetings and two of the last three here. The Aztecs (17-6, 10-4) led by 10 at intermission despite getting no points from leading scorer Miles Byrd, then Byrd opened the second half with a 3 and they were flying.
Score with 12 minutes left: 46-23.
(That’s right, Boise State had 23 points in 28 minutes.)
“I’ve watched all their games,” Boise State coach Leon Rice said. “That was probably the most complete 40 minutes defensively they’ve played this year. I’ve seen some elite minutes from them, but they’ve been digging themselves some holes, and then all of a sudden when they turn it on, you’re like: ‘Uh, oh. That looks different.’
“I’ve seen them do this in stretches, but this was the night they put it together for 40.”
The Broncos (17-8, 9-5) shot a season-low 34.5% percent overall (3 of 18 behind the arc), which is what happens when you get 10 shots blocked. Degenhart hit his average of 17 points but needed 16 shots and was 0 of 5 from distance. No one else scored in double figures.
The 47 points were their fewest in a conference loss since ing the Mountain West in 2011-12.
Boyd eclipsed his previous career high by one, against Gonzaga on Nov. 18. He also broke a 4 of 27 slump behind the arc with a pair of first-half 3s and had no turnovers in a team-high 36 minutes. In the last three halves, he has 38 points.
“I’ve been struggling in conference getting my footing, when to , when to shoot,” the Florida Atlantic transfer said. “That second half at San Jose State, I said, ‘You know, I’m just going to be aggressive.’ The same thing tonight: Take what the game gives you and be aggressive. If I go to score, either I’ll be open or if they collapse, I can make the .”
Gwath finished with one of the crazier lines you’ll see: eight points, six rebounds, five blocks and seven turnovers. Byrd had no points in the first half and finished with 10. Wayne McKinney III also had 10 off the bench and went over 1,000 points for his career, the first three years which was across town at USD.
The Broncos briefly made it interesting with a 12-0 run that forced a Brian Dutcher timeout with 8:37 left, but the Aztecs responded with a lob from Byrd to Gwath that he grabbed over a defender and scored at the shot-clock buzzer, followed by a baseline jumper by McKinney.
With 6:32 to go, Rice said something official Scott Brown didn’t appreciate and was hit with a technical foul. Byrd made one of two free throws, then Boyd scored inside to push the margin to a more comfortable 16.
Winning by 17 when the computer projected a three-point win elevated SDSU’s Kenpom metric from 50 to 43, second best in the conference behind New Mexico at 38.
“We’ve just got to win games,” Dutcher said. “We’ve got six to go (in the regular season), and we have to win games. Stay in the race and keep trying to build a resume.”
Notable
The Aztecs host 10th-place Fresno State on Tuesday night (8 p.m., CBS Sports Network), then play at second-place Utah State on Saturday.
• Michael Cage, who has his No. 44 retired in the Viejas rafters, was in attendance and received a nice ovation when introduced in the first half.
• SDSU’s record for blocks in a Mountain West game is 12, done twice against Wyoming.
• The Aztecs had a 14-0 run, making it 24 straight wins when they have a run of 10-0 or greater. Eleven have come this season.
• Boise State won the rebounding battle 31-30 and had 13 offensive boards, but SDSU compensated with an 11-0 margin in fast-break points.
