The newly ranked No. 24 Aztecs will face a completely different challenge at highly dynamic Fresno State – San Diego Union-Tribune

Suddenly the script flips.

The San Diego State basketball team is evolving from the hunter to the hunted, from non-conference to conference, from one of the slowest teams in the country to the second fastest, from the glitz of the Las Vegas Strip to the fields of the Central Valley.

“We have to take what we did in Vegas but go beyond that,” coach Brian Dutcher said.

Fresno State is not Houston, which was a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament the last two seasons. But on Wednesday night at the Save Mart Center (7:30 p.m., FS1), the Bulldogs pose a completely different kind of challenge for Dutcher’s young team. They’ve had a full week to prepare. They play a frenetic, unorthodox style. You press. They push. They attack. They get upset.

And the Aztecs are ranked No. 24 in the Associated Press poll after a 73-70 overtime win over then-No. 6 Houston, which is good for the program’s national respect but, based on last season, not necessarily a good thing for their immediate prospects.

When San Diego State reached the top 25 for the first time last year, it lost the following week and was eliminated. The same thing happened when the Aztecs were ranked for the second time. And the third time. And the fourth time.

“I’ve been here three years and I know a lot of people think there’s a curse behind our ranking,” redshirt sophomore Miles Byrd said. “You just have to come in and be locked in for our Wednesday game. … There are teams that are below us right now that are probably looking up and saying, ‘This is the perfect chance to beat a ranked team.'”

“I’m interested,” Dutcher said, “to see how we respond.”

Two years ago, the Aztecs went to Save Mart Center and won 45-43 with their lowest offensive efficiency rating in a win in the 22-year history of the Kenpom metric, a span of 722 games.

That won’t be it.

Fresno State did not renew Justin Hutson’s contract last spring after six seasons and replaced him with 68-year-old Vance Walberg.

“If you know me,” Walberg said, “I love walking up and down the court.”

A well-known name in the Central Valley, he played at Cal State Bakersfield and then coached at Clovis West High School and Fresno City College for 25 years. But he is also known in broader basketball circles as the architect of the innovative Dribble Drive Motion (DDM) offense that John Calipari adopted in Memphis in 2005 and that George Karl led at two NBA stops in the 2010s.

This is Walberg’s second chance as a Division I head coach. The first, at Pepperdine in 2006, didn’t go well; he went 14-35 in two seasons and then retired.

From there he went to UMass as an assistant, then five years as an NBA assistant with the Nuggets, 76ers and Kings, and then the last eight years as head coach at Clovis West.

“This opened last year (in the spring),” said Walberg, who is affiliated with several Fresno State boosters. “I’ve tried a few times and haven’t succeeded. I’m blessed to have this opportunity.”

Walberg installed the four-out-one DDM, which does not rely on ball screens or dribble handoffs like more modern offensive players, but is instead based on spacing the floor and attacking off the dribble to stress the defense. Help the big on the opposite block and it’s a dump down for a dunk. Help from the perimeter and they kick out for a 3.

“He creates space,” Dutcher said of Walberg’s offense, which was all the rage 15 years ago but has since waned in popularity. “He opens up lanes, double gaps where there’s no help, and he attacks the rim. And then they shoot the 3. They’re basically a metric team. It’s either a layup or a 3.”

Walberg combines this with a variety of presses that increase the pace. The Bulldogs rank second in Division I with 74.1 possessions per game, behind only fellow Mountain West member New Mexico. In contrast, Houston averages nearly nine fewer possessions and ranks 307th.

Since we have little time to replenish the squad (there are 11 new players), it doesn’t look like it will in the coming seasons now. The Bulldogs are 3-4 and have yet to beat anyone outside the .300 rating in the Kenpom rankings.

But it’s a conference game on the road that produced one of the biggest regular-season victories in school history.

“I just have to do a good job as one of the guys who played on the road in the Mountain West and remind these guys that nothing is certain,” Byrd said. “A conference game is basically like a rivalry game. You look at the rankings and say, “Okay, SDSU should win this game.” But I mean, everyone has a pretty good spotter on everyone and you know you’re going to be well guarded.

“Every team will come to play.”

Originally published: December 3, 2024 at 3:08 pm PST