SAN DIEGO — Snip, snip, snip.
The sweet sound of success.
San Diego State planned to bring out a ladder and cut down nets Saturday night at soldout Viejas Arena, whether it won the Mountain West men’s basketball championship outright or shared it. The latter scenario might have been a bit awkward, but it never came to pass.
Coach Brian Dutcher said they didn’t want to share. They didn’t.
A loss by second-place Boise State at Utah State clinched sole possession of first by halftime of SDSU’s game against Wyoming. Then the No. 18 Aztecs left no doubt by dispatching the last-place Cowboys 67-50 on Senior Night to finish 15-3 with a two-game cushion.
Out came the orange ladder and scissors. Out came the fans.
Snip, snip, snip.
It is SDSU’s ninth regular-season title in the 24-year history of the Mountain West, the third in Dutcher’s six years as head coach. They’ll try to make it 16 overall, counting conference tournament crowns, next week in Las Vegas, where they’ll be the No. 1 seed for the seventh time.
One by one, the players climbed the ladder and snipped a piece of nylon. Dutcher went last and cut the final strand, waving the net over his head and then falling backwards off the ladder into his players — just as he did at the Mountain West tournament a few years ago.
“This just shows all the dedication we’ve put in,” Keshad Johnson said as red, black and white confetti drifted down from above. “A long line of dedication, concentration, blood, sweat and tears, and this is just the result of all the work that we put in.”
Senior Night festivities took more than 10 minutes with eight players to honor: Aguek Arop, Matt Bradley, Nathan Mensah and Adam Seiko (who have exhausted their eligibility and can’t come back); Johnson (a senior who can); and walk-ons Jared Barnett and twins Triston and Tyler Broughton. All five scholarship seniors started.
But it was a senior who plans on returning, forward Jaedon LeDee, who had the biggest night, with 21 points on 8 of 9 shooting to go with eight rebounds and two blocks in 24 minutes.
Adam Seiko scored eight straight points in the second half and finished with 14 points after going 4 of 5 behind the 3-point arc. No one else had more than Bradley’s 11, which included a fallaway contested 3 from the right corner as the shot clock expired with 1:59 left after Wyoming had cut it to 14.
The Aztecs (24-6) didn’t shoot it particularly well (34%), but they held the Cowboys without a point for seven-plus minutes in the first half, limited leading scorer Hunter Maldonado to three points on 1 of 11 shooting (after scoring 20 in the first meeting), blocked a season-high nine shots and dominated the boards 40-28.
Bench scoring: 30-6, SDSU.
Jeff Linder, Wyoming’s innovative and fearless head coach, once played the Aztecs by holding the ball until late in the shot clock to minimize possessions in the game. In the first meeting in Laramie on Jan. 7, he had defenders sag a good 10 feet off Lamont Butler, who responded to the disrespect with five 3s and 23 points — both career highs.
This time, a 1-3-1 zone to open. Same result (a loss).
Butler went from 23 to zero points, and the Aztecs missed their first two shots against it. But the weakness of zones is on the glass, and Arop grabbed offensive rebounds on both before an easy put-back gave them a 2-0 lead they never relinquished.
Late in the first half, the Aztecs already had eight offensive boards and led 28-13. The Cowboys briefly trimmed it to 10 early in the second half before Seiko’s flurry (eight points in 71 seconds) helped push it into the 20s.
The only drama left was whether the Broughton twins would score the first points of their careers. (Triston was 0 of 4 in 11 appearances, Tyler 0 of 2 in 14.) They only played 46 seconds and didn’t attempt a shot.
Basketball coaches generally don’t like to look ahead, but they at least like to know who the next opponent is. As of Saturday afternoon for the Aztecs, it could have been Colorado State, or Fresno State, or UNLV, or Air Force.
That’s how convoluted the bottom half of the Mountain West standings were after Colorado State beat New Mexico on Friday to finish the 18-game conference schedule at 6-12. Fresno State is also 6-12. Home wins in other games would leave UNLV and Air Force at 6-12 as well, creating a four-way tie heading to the conference tournament next week in Las Vegas.
But as has been the theme all season in this conference, the expected didn’t happen. UNLV won in overtime at Nevada to get to 7-11 and sole possession of seventh place. And Air Force lost at home against San Jose State to drop to 5-13 and 10th place.
That leaves Colorado State and Fresno State in the 8-9 game on Wednesday at 11 a.m. in Las Vegas, with the winner facing the top-seeded Aztecs on Thursday at noon. Win that, and they would get the Nevada or San Jose State in Friday night’s semifinals at 6:30 p.m. Boise State, Utah State, New Mexico and UNLV are all in the opposite side of the bracket.
The championship game is Saturday at 3 p.m. on CBS.
Notable
The team will have Sunday off, practice Monday and Tuesday, then head to Las Vegas on Wednesday ... SDSU has won 24 or more games in 10 of the last 18 seasons ... It was the Aztecs’ 10 straight win against the Cowboys at any venue and 15th straight at Viejas Arena ... Dutcher is 10-1 against them ... Jeremiah Oden led Wyoming with 17 points. Xavier DuSell had 16 ... Arop had three of SDSU’s nine blocks. Mensah, Parrish and LeDee had two each ... Eight players scored for SDSU, nine had at least one rebound, seven had at least one assist.
