LAS VEGAS — The game was ugly.
The trophy is pretty.
San Diego State broke from the usual script of reaching the Mountain West tournament final and then losing, beating Utah State, 62-57, in exactly the kind of exhausting slog you’d expect from two teams playing their third game in 51 and 44 hours, respectively.
But style points are the least of your concerns when you’ve lost seven of the previous trips to the final. You cut down the nets just the same, aesthetically pleasing or not, Picasso or kindergarten finger painting, a game in the 80s or the 50s.
The Aztecs (27-6) painstakingly built a seven-point lead inside two minutes, and then did what they usually do: make you peek through your fingers like at a horror flick. Three missed shots and turnover late, it was down to 55-53 with 30 seconds left.
But Adam Seiko rattled in a pair of free throws with 25.5 seconds left, then the Aztecs forced a turnover on a baseline hammer play designed to get a 3. Aguek Arop and Micah Parrish made enough free throws to seal it, and soon confetti was falling in the Thomas & Mack Center.
They’ll take it.
The question now becomes whether it’s enough to coax a No. 5 seed out of the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee when it unveils the 68-team bracket on Sunday (3 p.m., CBS). Depending on your bracketologist of choice, the Aztecs are either a No. 5 or No. 6 seed — which carries big differences in quality of opponent (mid-major versus power conference) and prep time (a full four days or one, if you get the winner of a play-in game).
If the NCAA Selection Committee had the game in their hotel conference room, they would have been impressed more with SDSU’s grit and defensive might more than any offensive prowess.
Both teams shot well under 40% overall and were (yes) a combined 6 of 43 behind the 3-point arc.
Here was the game’s biggest 3-point play, with four minutes to go:
Matt Bradley got fouled on a drive and went to the line for a one-and-one, making the first, missing the second. Jaedon LeDee, all 6-foot-9, 240 pounds of him, fought through a scrum of bodies in the lane to tip the rebound out to a teammate, and Bradley was fouled again on a drive. Make, make.
Three points, the hard way.
The Aztecs retreated to the other end and defended for 40 straight seconds after Utah State missed and grabbed the offensive board. They grabbed the rebound after a second Utah State miss, then watched a Darrion Trammell jumper give them a 53-46 lead with three minutes left.
That’s what kind of game this was.
LeDee was a monster inside, finishing with 15 points and nine rebounds (five offensive) in 19 dominant minutes off the bench. Bradley had 14 points and was named tournament MVP. No one else had more than eight points on a night when the Aztecs shot 33.3% and still won.
For all the talk of athlete welfare within the NCAA in recent years, the Mountain West has ignored that when it comes to its conference tournament format, forcing athletes to play three games in as little as 43 hours. The turnaround from the semifinal to final is especially brutal, with one team getting 18 hours and the other barely 15.
The results are usually predictable: a slog of a game with clanked jumpers and bricked free throws as the players drag their exhausted bodies across the floor in deference to almighty CBS, which mandates a 3 p.m. Saturday tip if the conference wants its championship game on the big-boy network.
The first half was more of the same. The teams opened the game shooting a combined 6 of 25 overall and 0 of 4 behind the arc. The Aztecs went nearly six minutes with only one basket. At halftime, they were shooting 30.3% and were 1 of 7 on 3s; the Aggies were only slightly better at 36.7% and 2 of 9.
The Aggies had just two first-half turnovers and built a 26-15 lead while SDSU struggled to find any sort of offensive rhythm before Micah Parrish made a jumper in the lane to stop the bleeding. That ignited a 13-3 run to end the half and close to 29-28.
What saved the Aztecs was offensive boards. They had 11 in the first half, which would be a good number for an entire game, that they converted into 12 points.
The halftime break didn’t seem to help much. The teams came out and missed their first seven shots and 11 of 12.
The Aztecs finally got going. Or more specifically, LeDee got going. He scored on back-to-back-to-back possessions – a spinning right-handed layup and foul, a free-throw line jumper, a spinning left-handed hook — as they went ahead 44-36.
Utah State coach Ryan Odom responded with a 2-3 zone, which the Aztecs have routinely torched this season but he figured he might as well try something. And it worked, allowing the Aggies to get back in the game.
For a moment, they thought they had taken the lead on a Taylor Funk 3 at the shot-clock buzzer, but the officials waved it off after a lengthy review.
That was as close as they got to the lead again.
Notable
The Aztecs flew home Saturday night. They’ll host a private viewing party for Selection Sunday to learn their NCAA Tournament draw. If they play Thursday, they’ll leave Tuesday. If it’s a Friday-Sunday site, they’ll leave Wednesday … The officiating crew: Larry Spaulding (who worked SDSU’s semifinal), David Hall (who worked the other Mountain West semi) and Michael Irving (who was at the Pac-12 on Friday) … Butler (finger) and Mensah (ankle) both picked up injuries during the game, but both returned after treatment … Steven Ashworth led Utah State with 13 points. Trevin Dorius, who hadn’t scored in the quarterfinals or semis, had 12 points … The all-tournament team: Bradley, LeDee, Ashworth, Funk (who had 32 points in the quarterfinals) and Boise State’s Tyson Degenhart.
