SDSU Aztecs

Men’s Basketball 26-Game Win Streak Snapped

Daniel Farr

San Diego State men’s basketball team had their 26 game winning streak snapped on Saturday at Viejas arena. The Runnin’ Rebels stunned the Aztecs 66-63.

“We tasted defeat for the first time and it doesn’t taste very good,” Head coach Brian Dutcher said.

In the final seconds, junior Matt Mitchell shot near half court and it missed. It would’ve sent the game into overtime.

“This one loss is a reality check.” Mitchell said, “It shows we’re not invincible.”

Mitchell finished with 13 points on 37.5% shooting.

SDSU men’s basketball led for less than two minutes the entire game, it was their cold shooting in the first half which put them too far behind.

They shot 33% in the first half and 2-for-12 from three point range.

“UNLV played a very good first half.” Dutcher said, “They shot 57% from the field, almost 50% from three and created a big enough lead where they got comfortable.”

The Aztecs were averaging 74.3 points per game when playing conference opponents like the Runnin’ Rebels, but today their offense was stagnant.

Junior Malachi Flynn led the Aztecs in points, assists and rebounds, but even his late game heroics weren’t enough on Saturday.

With just over two minutes remaining, Flynn hit a three pointer and it cut the UNLV lead to six. He then made two free throws and cut the lead to only four. 

After Flynn’s late game free throws, sophomore Aguek Arop blocked a Runnin’ Rebel layup and then scored a layup on the other side of the floor.

It brought the Aztecs within just two points. 

The Aztecs were forced to intentionally foul and it sent Elijah Mitrou-Long to the line and he didn’t miss. Mitrou-Long shot 78% from the line and hit timely free-throws down the stretch. 

On SDSU’s next possession Flynn hit another three pointer and it made the game 64-63, Rebels.

However Mitrou-Long was intentionally fouled yet again and he hit two more free throws to nearly ice the game.

“We lost and it’s the first time it happened,” Flynn said, “It doesn’t feel good.”

As for the Aztecs and their ranking, this loss will likely drop them from No. 4 in the nation. 

“Time will tell, we’ll see soon enough.” Dutcher said. “We have to get off it, we have to win our next game and we have to keep winning games. The only thing we can control is our own performance. We can’t control where people decide to put us in the poll.”

The Aztecs didn’t get the production they are used to from Yanni Wetzell. The big man shot 1-for-6 from the free throw line and scored only seven points.

Senior KJ Feagin also struggled to find the bottom of the net. He only scored five points and shot 25% from the field. It was a night where the Aztecs shot 29% from three and 38.9% for the game.

They’ll play again at Viejas Arena for senior night on Feb. 25 at 8 p.m.

Written by: Daniel Farr

SDSU Lacrosse Wins Home Opener

Daniel Farr

San Diego State’s lacrosse team played their first home game of the 2020 campaign on Thursday afternoon against Arizona State University. The Aztecs won a thrilling back and forth game 19-18. 

Freshman Camdyn O’Donnell tied the game at 18 for the Aztecs, then with less than a minute remaining, she scored the game-winning goal. O’Donnell finished with four goals and three assists on Thursday. 

“We were going back and forth,” O’Donnell said. “My teammates had trust in me and that put confidence in myself.”

SDSU started the game down 3-0, but ended up taking the lead 4-3. Later, SDSU trailed 9-6 and 10-8 at halftime. 

“I think we played it close in the first half to our gameplan.” Head coach Kylee White said. “We really were missing some key things and that’s what we re-visited at halftime.” 

Out of the halftime break, the Aztecs scored four unanswered goals and led 12-10. However, the Sun Devils would not go down quietly.

 Led by red-shirt senior Kerri Clayton, ASU retook a 14-12 lead. Then led 18-16 with only two minutes left in the game. Clayton finished with six goals and three assists. 

“We wanted to push her [Clayton] under instead of letting her get open and take the shot she was scoring on.” White said, “We wanted to make them pass a little more. We needed to help a lot more.”

The Aztecs responded yet again, scoring three unanswered goals to finish off their home-opener. Senior Emily Resnick scored the teams 17th goal and O’Donnell finished the off the job.

“They gutted it out.” White said, “Home-opener is great, but that’s not what i’m thinking about. To win a back and forth battle and where it comes down to the end and they gutted it out, that’s the most exciting part of it.”

SDSU Junior Lexi Tan scored six goals on six shots and opened up the field for her teammates.

“It was all my teammates, they were passing to me.” Tan said, “I just looked and it was wideopen.” 

The Aztecs will have a difficult schedule, likely facing five nationally ranked teams during the 2020 campaign. 

SDSU lacrosse now sits at 1-1, with their one loss coming against Stanford University.

“The team that showed up today has to be the same on Sunday.” White said. “Just because USC is ranked shouldn’t change the way we play. We need to go in there feeling that way instead of the way we started against Stanford.”

Written by: Daniel Farr

SDSU wins big against Nevada, 70-56

Josh Pupping Leave a Comment
The University of Nevada visited Viejas Arena on Sunday flaunting a record of 19-5 (8-3 in the conference), which had them tied for first place in the Mountain West.
San Diego State men’s basketball, on the other hand, sat at 13-10 (5-6 in the conference), an abysmal record compared to what Aztec fans have seen in recent years. Coming off a their first loss to San Jose State University since 1999, SDSU was in desperate need of a morale boost.
However, all those in attendance for Sunday’s affair witnessed the Aztecs return to their dominant ways.
The Scarlet and Black flashed energy on defense, playing with the passion and pride SDSU supporters have longed for all season. They came into the game with a clear chip on their shoulder against the top team in the conference, looking the part of a team with something to prove.
Junior forward Malik Pope started off hot for the Aztecs, converting three of his first four shots from the field, including a three-pointer.
Senior guard Dakarai Allen followed suit with two-handed jam to put the crowd on their feet.
Junior guard Trey Kell later watched a historic two-point field goal find the bottom of the net, as he became the 31st player in school history to reach 1,000 career points.
Nevada chipped away at SDSU’s lead late in the second half. Senior forward Matt Shrigley, however, silenced their momentum with seven points in the final two minutes, forcing the Wolf Pack to finish the second half down 42-28 with their tail between their legs.
The Wolf Pack never left the doghouse.
SDSU’s sophomore forward Zylan Cheatham kept the Aztecs’ energy levels up with a few huge plays, including two monstrous dunks and an emphatic block. He finished the contest with just four points, but his strong defense and contagious energy left a positive impact that fell far beyond the box score.
Following Cheatham’s lead, the Aztecs nursed a comfortable lead through the remainder of the second half behind Kell’s team-high 17 points and sophomore guard Jeremy Hemsley’s 15 points.
Defensively, the Aztecs were at their best against Nevada’s leading scorer, senior guard Marcus Marshall. Though he entered the contest averaging 20.1 points per game, Marshall was held to just four points on 1-10 shooting.
Overall, this was a great win for Aztec basketball, beating first place Nevada by 14 points and gaining some of that swagger back. Now, they need to ride this momentum into their next game against Utah State on Wednesday.

Rams batter Aztecs’ shield in the closing minutes, defeat SDSU 78-77

Kyle Saunders

San Diego State men’s basketball fell just short of the mark, as Colorado State University battled back from a 13-point deficit in the second half to beat the Aztecs, 78-77.

CSU senior guard Gian Clavell was the man responsible for the Rams’ game-winning shot, putting the game on ice with a layup with just 3.8 seconds left in the contest.

“Once I saw [SDSU junior forward Malik] Pope kind of reach in, I pulled it up and it went off the backboard,” Clavell said. “Thankfully it went in.”

The Aztecs’ student section wasn’t thankful of Clavell, as the Scarlet and Black faithful dialed their chanting efforts towards him all night. Unfortunately for The Show, their chants only seemed to fuel Clavell’s scoring frenzy.

Clavell’s layup pushed his point total to a career-high 37 points on 14-23 shooting from the floor.

The Aztecs, however, dominated the first half of Saturday’s affair with momentous dunks from both Pope and senior center Valentine Izundu. The two’s efforts helped SDSU build a 10-point lead at halftime.

The Rams, of course, bucked back.

A barrage of three-pointers fueled CSU’s comeback efforts, as the team shot an outstanding 87.5 percent (7-8) from downtown in the second half. With that, the Rams finished the day shooting 55.6 percent (10-18) from behind the arc, doubling the Aztecs’ measly 27.3 percent three-point percentage.

Pope did his best to keep SDSU’s offense afloat, as he led the team in scoring with 19 points. He also picked up a team-high seven rebounds, filling the void of injured sophomore forward Zylan Cheathum.

“Missing Zylan is a big piece, so of course I’ll have to step my game up on rebounding and all the ways that he helps this team,” Pope said. “But we all did that. All five of us. Everyone else on the court, it wasn’t just me. We just had to pick up the slack [in the things] he was really good at. [But we’re] just waiting. Just waiting, hoping he gets back soon.”

Cheathum was a late scratch from the lineup due to a “stress reaction” in his foot. His status will remain day to day.

SDSU’s second half collapse against CSU shares similarities to the team’s 60-57 loss to Air Force on Tuesday. Both games featured an Aztec team incapable of maintaining a lead in the closing minutes.

Though SDSU was able to crash the offensive boards late in the contest, they simply couldn’t push their shots through the bottom of the net in the clutch moments of the game.

Additionally, the Aztecs’ offense left a lot of points off the board because of missed free throws, as the team shot just 67.8 percent (19-28) from the line. Pope went as far as to completely miss the basket on one of the team’s final free throws, one of many SDSU miscues late in the game.

Despite the mistakes, SDSU head coach Steve Fisher believes his team did everything necessary to win the game.

“When you have five turn overs, score 77 points, get to the free throw line 28 times and they are 14, you should win the game,” Fisher said. “And we didn’t.”

The loss adds to the Aztecs’ current downward spiral, as they have now fallen to 11-9 overall and 3-5 in conference play.

Fisher will look to right the ship before the Aztecs’ next home affair against the University of Wyoming on Tuesday, Jan. 31.

Thumbnail/Featured Image: Jan. 28, 2017; San Diego, CA, USA; Colorado State Rams guard Gian Clavell (3) is defended by San Diego State Aztecs guard Jeremy Hemsley (42) as he shoots. Credit: Jake Roth, USA TODAY Sports