Three thoughts on San Diego State’s 79-54 win against Saint Mary’s on Friday night in the opening round of the Continental Tire Main Event at T-Mobile Arena, ahead of Sunday night’s 7 p.m. final against Washington on ESPN2:
1. Familiar face
Washington sophomore guard Koren Johnson saw the Huskies’ 2023-24 schedule and immediately noticed one of the other teams in the Continental Tire Main Event: San Diego State.
Johnson initially committed to SDSU in October 2021, the highest rated of a three-man recruiting class that also included Miles Byrd and Elijah Saunders. “1,000% committed,” he posted on social media. “Go Aztecs.”
Two days before the national letter of intent signing window opened in November, he decommitted and ultimately returned home to Seatle to attend Washington. Recruiting flips are common in football. They’re not in basketball; once a guy verbally commits, he almost never reneges.
Johnson did.
Now, as fate would have it, he faces the Aztecs.
“When I saw they were in the tournament with us, I was hoping we’d both win,” Johnson said after the Huskies beat Xavier 74-71 in Friday’s late game to set up the Sunday showdown. “It’s just going to be a personal game. We’re going to have fun. … It’s all love, all love. I’m going to say ‘what’s up’ to the coaching staff and be cool. I’m not beefing with them or anything.”
Washington guard Koren Johnson, who initially committed to SDSU out of high school before decomitting, shoots against Xavier’s Sasa Ciani in the Huskies 74-71 win Friday night in Las Vegas.
(Michael Hickey / Getty Images)
Johnson blames homesickness for his decommitment, starting when he left for Wasatch Academy in rural Utah for his senior year to, in part, escape detrimental influences in Seattle. There also, several sources have said, were monetary enticements with name, image and license payments in their infancy.
“My great grandmother, she got sick, so I wanted to be home off the strength of that,” Johnson said. “I wanted to be around my family and everybody. My mom was (angry). She wanted me to fight through adversity, just get through it, but I kind of wanted to take the easy way out and I came back home. I was homesick.”
The Huskies have gone 17-15 and 16-16 in his two seasons and failed to make the NCAA Tournament. The Aztecs did twice, and last season he watched them play for the national championship.
“I was kind of — what’s the word? — I wouldn’t say salty,” said Johnson, who averages 10.5 points in 23.5 minutes off the bench for the Huskies. “I’m happy for them, they did what they did, and I could have been part of that. But I’m happy where I’m at, so there are no regrets or anything.”
That applies to both sides.
“We love Koren as a player,” SDSU coach Brian Dutcher said. “We wouldn’t have recruited him and taken a commit from him if we didn’t. But I also understood his hometown school is Washington. I think the fact that he went to a prep school (in Utah) made him miss home more.
“So I understood his decision to change his mind. Better to happen before he came to us than realize a year into it that he’d rather be home.”
There’s also this: Had Johnson come, the Aztecs likely would not have pursued a guard in the transfer portal the following spring.
Who did they get? A 5-10 guard from Seattle University named Darrion Trammell … who was MVP of the NCAA South Regional and put the Aztecs into the Final Four with a winning free throw with 1.2 seconds left against Creighton.
2. Go Gaels
Here’s how college basketball works: You try like heck to beat a team, then you wish them the best and genuinely mean it.
“I’m a Long Beach fan, a Saint Mary’s fan, anybody we play, I want them to have great years — BYU, Fullerton, everybody,” Dutcher said. “That only helps our metrics.”
Long Beach State obliged, beating DePaul in Chicago on Saturday, losing at Viejas Arena on Tuesday, then flying back to the Midwest and winning 94-86 at Michigan on Friday.
Saint Mary’s? Same deal. If Friday’s win indeed a resume-builder, the Gaels have to have the kind of season everyone expected.
Right now, they’re not. They blew a 16-point lead at home against Weber State last weekend and lost 61-57. Then, a second-half meltdown Friday and their most lopsided nonconference loss since, well, the Aztecs also beat them by 25 in 2021.
The combination of Long Beach State’s epic road win and SDSU’s convincing performance against the WCC preseason favorite (ahead of Gonzaga) shot the Aztecs from 31 to 15 in the Kenpom.com metric, well inside NCAA at-large berth territory. But if the Gaels — who have already plummeted from 38th to 64th — continue to slide, they’ll yank down SDSU’s numbers with them.
And their schedule isn’t exactly conducive to a team suddenly in search of its identity. They play six more top-100 teams before starting WCC play, starting Sunday with No. 43 Xavier.
“We have a lot of room to get better and we need to start getting better,” Gaels coach Randy Bennett said. “That’s what I told our guys. Everything has to improve: our leadership, our competitiveness — which is the scary one — our toughness, our ability to defend, our ability to make a basket, shoot a 3, make a free throw.
“I mean, we’re starting from scratch. We haven’t been there in a long time, but that is exactly where we’re at. … Right now, we’re struggling.”
3. The baskets
Some players in the morning shootaround at T-Mobile Arena noticed the backboard of the portable basket at the west end appeared slightly crooked. Crews worked before the games to fix it, and a contractor’s level showed that the rim was indeed flat.
Maybe it had something to do with sightlines from black curtains covering the arena’s upper deck. Maybe T-Mobile has ghosts. Or maybe it was just in players’ heads.
But the numbers suggest something funky was going on.
The Aztecs shot at the west basket in the first half and were 10 of 24, or 41.7 percent. Shooting at the east end in the second half, they were 19 of 32, a blistering 59.4 percent.
Same with Saint Mary’s. Same with Washington and Xavier in Friday’s second game. All four shot better, significantly better in some cases, at the east end.
The total numbers through two games: 33.1 percent at the west basket, 48.4 percent at the east basket. (Free throw percentages were closer, although still better at the east end as well.)
The baskets looked fine for Saturday practices in the arena, and the bubble on the contractor’s level showed the rims were flat. And two games are a small enough sample size that it’s within the realm of coincidence.
The good news for the Aztecs: They’re supposed to go the same way Sunday night, meaning they’ll shoot at the east basket in the second half.
