Fresno State coach Vance Walberg had a brace on his right hand protecting the fingers he allegedly broke playing pickle ball.
It apparently wasn’t from punching a wall after watching his team, although they might want to check the visitors’ locker room at Viejas Arena for suspicious holes after Tuesday night’s game against San Diego State.
The Aztecs had already covered the 17½-point spread by halftime and cruised to an 83-60 victory in their second straight impressive display in a venue where, in a departure from most years, they haven’t always been impressive this season.
Since halftime at San Jose State, a stretch of 2½ games, they have now outscored opponents by 60 points and shot a sizzling 54.5% percent.
“I feel we’re playing with a lot more motivation,” said Wayne McKinney III, who delivered an inspiring halftime speech with his team down 17 at San Jose State. “We know what’s on the line, we know what’s a stake. We know we have to go hard every single day in practice.
“The season is wrapping up. Selection Sunday is coming up and we want to have our name called.”
The wide margin, following the 64-47 win against Boise State here three days earlier, continued to repair SDSU’s fading computer metrics over the previous month. The Aztecs were winning; they just weren’t games like this by enough.
The Boise State rout elevated them eight spots in the Kenpom metric. Tuesday’s 23-point margin bumped them up another spot to 41 after close calls against Air Force, Wyoming and San Jose State (twice) had dropped them into the danger zone of the 50s.
This was the last of the gimmes, though.
The remaining five regular-season games look like this: at second-place Utah State, home against first-place New Mexico, at Wyoming at 7,220 feet, at a UNLV team that won in Viejas Arena last month and home against Nevada.
The Aztecs (18-7, 11-4), you figure, need to win four of the five to secure an at-large berth, no matter what happens in the Mountain West tournament. Win three, and they might still squeak in based on their current position.
But if they continue playing like this, they might not have to worry.“Usually our defense carries us, which it did (again) tonight,” coach Brian Dutcher said. “But our offense, when we play like that, then you get the margins we’ve had the last two games. Proud of the guys.”
About the only thing they lost Tuesday night was the opening tip. They got a stop on their first defensive possession, then Nick Boyd continued his torrid form – he had a career-high 24 against Boise State – with a 3.
It was 11-4, 22-10, 28-14, 41-18 and then 43-23 at the half, the first wire-to-wire win of the season against a Division I opponent and first against a Mountain West foe in 21 games (since beating Fresno State 73-41).
They did it without starting guard BJ Davis for all but the opening 2:32. Davis was ill, tried to go, subbed out and never returned.
McKinney subbed in and responded with 15 points (3 of 6 on 3s) in 27 minutes, his second straight game in double figures.
Boyd had 13 points and six assists by halftime and finished with 19 and seven while ing the 1,000-point plateau for his career, three years of which was spent at Florida Atlantic.
Gwath had 25 points, 10 rebounds and four blocks in the first meeting back on Dec. 4, then 14, six and three on Tuesday. In two games against the Bulldogs, he’s shooting 4 of 5 behind the arc.
With Davis out, crowd favorite Kimo Ferrari moved up a spot in the rotation and got 14 minutes, finishing with five points (and nearly eight had a late 3 not bounced in and out) to go with three rebounds.
The Aztecs shot 54.0%, just below their season high (54.9%) against Cal Baptist on Dec. 11. That makes it 102 straight wins at Viejas Arena when they make at least half their shots.
“I was nervous about this game,” Dutcher said. “We were going to see zone for the first time in a long time. They zoned the whole first half and a lot of the second half. We had a game plan I thought was really effective. It allowed us to get in paint, high post touches, dunks around the basket. I thought our zone offense was really, really good for not having played a lot of it over the course of the season.”
The Bulldogs (5-22, 1-15) got 16 points from Jalen Weaver and 15 from Alex Crawford, McKinney III’s teammate at Coronado High who also spent time at Div. I Stetson and San Diego City College.
It was SDSU’s 12th straight win against its CSU brethren from the Central Valley and fourth straight by at least 20 points.
Asked what he saw out there, coach Vance Walberg said: “You saw one team a lot better than the other. It wasn’t hard to figure that one out.”
The only question over the closing minutes was how lopsided the final margin would be, knowing that it impacts metrics. The Aztecs got it to 32 with eight minutes left, then had it cut to 25, then got it back to 29. It was 27 when the walk-ons subbed in with 1:45 left.
The 23-point margin exceeded expectations but not enough to make much difference in the metrics, and letting a 32-point lead become 23 over a sloppy closing minutes amounted to a lost opportunity of sorts.
“Every point matters, we tell them that,” Dutcher said. “We want to play to the very end, and I thought we did. But you’re running guys in and out at the end who haven’t played together much. You want it to be smooth and easy, but sometimes it’s not. Fresno, they don’t give in. They’re not going to quit. They played very hard at the end.
“And I’m not looking to pour it on another team. I would never do that.”
Notable
The players get Wednesday off, then begin preparations for Saturday’s showdown at Utah State (5 p.m. PST, CBS Sports Network) … Guy Fieri of “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” fame was in attendance and led the “I Believe” chant. His son is one of the team’s student managers … Dutcher said Miles Byrd (eight points, five steals) is still bothered by his sprained right thumb and received a pain injection … Freshman Pharaoh Compton had eight points (4 of 4 shooting), his most in nine games … The Aztecs entered the day averaging 5.7 blocks and had six … SDSU’s best scoring run was 7-0.
