After a slow start, 23rd-ranked San Diego State rallied to roll Cal in San Jose – San Diego Union-Tribune

SAN JOSE – What happens if your Friday flight is canceled, you spend the night in Newport Beach so you can fly out of Orange County the next morning, then that flight is canceled and you and part of the party board a third, different Southwest Airlines to Ontario travel flight while the rest traveled the 388 miles north by bus, then that flight is delayed, you arrive in San Jose just hours before the game and are late for your shootaround slot, and you Only have 24 minutes before start to get used to a new arena, lighting, angles and sight lines?

You miss your first six shots.

And 11 of your first 12.

And 16 of your first 18.

And 21 of your first 25.

And… you win?

The 23rd ranked San Diego State Aztecs figured if they were going to go through all the trouble of getting to San Jose’s SAP Center, they might as well get something out of it with a crazy 71-50 win against Cal came from behind 10-2 and then led by as many as 29.

Crazy because of the way they got here. Crazy because of the way they won.

The team that supposedly can’t rebound dominated the boards against one of the best players in the country statistically. The Golden Bears have been faster than their opponents in all 11 games this season and entered the day ranked 20th in Division I in the number of offensive players they fended off after missed shots. (And SDSU ranked 283rd in keeping teams off the offensive boards.)

Final rebound stats: Aztecs 49, Bears 39.

Second chance points off the offensive boards: Aztecs 26, Bears 6.

That helped them overcome the brick house they built in the first half and didn’t score a 3-pointer until the 19th minute of the game.

Then they adjusted the rims and Cal (7-5) was really in trouble.

Pretty much trouble.

The Aztecs (8-2) missed their first 10 from behind the arc. And made 8 of their next 10, all but one coming in a flurry of points early in the second half that brought fear and laughter.

Nick Boyd went scoreless in the first half but finished the game with 17 points (and four steals) after hitting five three-pointers in the second half. Miles Byrd and BJ Davis added 12 each. Magoon Gwath had six points, 10 rebounds (six offensive) and three blocks.

There were doubts about whether they would even play the game. When fog in San Diego forced the cancellation of their flight to San Jose on Friday, the team took the bus to Mission Valley for dinner (and to wait out rush hour traffic) and then drove to a hotel in Newport Beach for the night.

When they woke up there was more fog, and their 10:30 a.m. flight from Orange County to Oakland was soon canceled as well. The decision was to load the entire team onto a bus for the seven-hour drive north (with no guarantee they would make it in time) or find alternative flights.

They found 18 spots on one from Ontario to San Jose at 12:20 p.m. and quickly sent most of the players and coaches to the Inland Empire. The rest of the tour group took the bus north and arrived at the San Jose Tip-Off event just minutes before the 7:30 p.m. game. Because Stanford and Oregon played first, the teams were only allowed 24 minutes to warm up in the nightcap between games.

And it wasn’t like it was a Mountain West arena where many members of the roster had played before. It was SDSU’s first-ever appearance at the SAP Center, home of the NHL’s San Jose Sharks, which rarely hosts college basketball games.

Give Brian Dutcher that much. He called it.

After scoring well against Cal Baptist on Dec. 11 but struggling along the boards, the Aztecs coach was asked what he would work on in the 10 days leading up to the Cal game.

“After USD,” Dutcher said of the previous game in which they struggled to score, “it would have been offensive.” But it seems like all is well now. So in the next game we will be bad offensively, return the ball and play defense. It’s coaching. Who knows what it will be.”

Forward-looking words. In fact, they were bad offensively for a half, but they recovered and played defense.

And that kept them in the game even though it looked like they would never score again. Shooting may not go well. But the defense, they say, does.

Consider this incomprehensible statistic:

Midway through the first half they scored 2 of 18 balls with five turnovers… and were only five behind.

At halftime, they still only had a shooting percentage of 28.1%, had 10 turnovers… and led by nine.

That’s because Cal really couldn’t score. The Bears were 5 of 32 (15.6%) overall and 0 of 12 from 3 at the break.

When these teams met a year ago, Cal coach Mark Madsen freaked out at the referees in the second half and received a technical foul that put the Aztecs ahead by 12 with nine minutes left. And that fired up his team, which came roaring back and forced overtime after SDSU missed its final 16 shot attempts

The obligatory T for feigned outrage came earlier this year when there were 5:18 left in the first half and the Aztecs had a five-minute lead. It didn’t have the same effect, and the Aztecs took a 25-16 halftime lead after Miles Byrd hit either team’s only three-pointer in the first 20 minutes (they were, look, 1 of 23 combined).

Remarkable

After the game, the players took a short vacation break. They return to campus on Christmas night, practice the next two days and then host Utah State on Dec. 28 (3 p.m. on Fox) to resume the Mountain West season…For the fifth time, Randy Richardson was on the officiating team for 10 SDSU games this season. The rest of the team consisted of West Coast veterans: Mike Reed and Michael Irving… The game was the finale of a two-game series against Cal, played on neutral sites near each other’s campuses. Last year’s game was at JSerra High in San Juan Capistrano, a 76-67 win for the Aztecs in OT… Freshman Pharaoh Compton continues to impress but continued to be in foul trouble, picking up his fourth with 13:14 left… Dutcher left with a 10-man rotation through the meat of the game, including Bay Area native Demarshay Johnson Jr

Originally published: December 21, 2024 at 9:45 pm PST