3 thoughts: BYU 74, No. 17 San Diego State 65

Provo, Utah —

Three thoughts on No. 17 San Diego State’s 74-65 loss at BYU on Friday night in the Marriott Center:

1. The to-do list

A day before leaving for Provo, coach Brian Dutcher joked: “I must need my head examined, because we’re going to a place where we’re 4-30. But we’re going. I like the game.”

He does, for two reasons. One is, if you somehow crack the code and win at the Marriott Center, it’s a resume-builder in the eyes of the NCAA Tournament selection committee. The other is, even if you don’t, you learn about your team’s deficiencies in a way that a parade of 20-point blowouts at Viejas Arena don’t offer.

The idea is to be playing better in February than you are in November. But to do that, you need a to-do list of items that need fixing. And you can’t figure out what needs to be fixed until it is broken.

“It’s the second game of the year,” Dutcher said. “Very few teams are playing at maximum efficiency Game 2 of the season. You hope you are. And you never know if you will or not until you step out here. But we were not at maximum efficiency.”

Here are some of the more prominent items on a growing laundry list:

The bench: Through two games, it has been outscored 59-16. The bench never was held to single digits in all 39 games last season; this season, it has happened in two straight.

An unproductive (and now injured) bench means Dutcher has to ride with his starters longer, which might work at sea level but is a dicey proposition at altitude. The Aztecs outscored the Cougars 33-19 over the opening eight minutes of each half, when the starters were still relatively fresh. Over the final 12 minutes of each half, with some combination of bench players and fatigued starters, BYU had a 55-32 edge.

Last season, the veteran SDSU bench averaged just under 80 minutes per game. On Friday night, it played a mere 48 at altitude — 30 fewer than against BYU a year earlier at sea level.

The arc: If opponents opt to double-team Jaedon LeDee in the post, as BYU did regularly, it leaves his teammates open on the perimeter for catch-and-shoot 3s or drives into the paint.

“We didn’t make the shot, or we didn’t do enough productive things when they had a long closeout,” Dutcher said. “We’ve got to make those plays.”

After a 5-for-18 effort behind the arc, the Aztecs are now 14 of 49 on the season, or 28.6 percent. That would have ranked 362^nd (out of 363 programs) in Division I last season.

In other words: They’re going to see more post doubles.

The boards: Both times last season when the Aztecs had a double-digit rebounding deficit, they lost (against Arizona and Boise State). So Friday’s result wasn’t much of a surprise after BYU won the battle of boards 42-32.

More concerning is the offensive glass, where the Aztecs have already surrendered 25 in two games. That allowed Cal State Fullerton and BYU each to get up 61 shots, six more than Aztecs opponents averaged last season. And more shots usually mean more points.

2. The positives

It wasn’t all bad.

Sophomore Elijah Saunders had his best half as an Aztec thanks to a pair of confidence-boosting breakaway dunks: six points, four rebounds, two assists and three steals in 14 minutes.

True freshman Miles Heide, after a rough opener and a meek first half Friday, showed a more physical presence in the paint, grabbing one steal and nearly a second.

USC transfer Reese Waters has transitioned nicely, scoring 15 points for the second straight game.

But the most positive development was senior guard Darrion Trammell playing after missing 4½ weeks with a left shoulder injury. He had seven points (3 of 6 shooting), one rebound no assists, one steal and one turnover in 21 minutes off the bench.

The Aztecs were minus-19 points with him on the floor, but, in his defense, much of that was with tired starters or unproductive reserves when BYU made it runs. And it was less about how he played than that he played.

The Aztecs, already short-handed, need the MVP of the NCAA Tournament’s South Region and their 2022-23 minutes leader if they hope to make any noise this season.

“Credit to Darrion,” Dutcher said. “He made some shots and he played hard. He’s practiced one full practice in (a month). To go one practice and step out and play in a game, it’s hard to do. No matter who you are, your timing is going to be off.

“He got in the wrong place on a couple set plays — that’s just from not practicing and not playing. But we’re excited to have Darrion back. I think he came through it really well. I thought he played really hard and I thought he played really unafraid.”

BYU fans, cheerleaders and Cougarettes cheer during a second-half timeout.

3. The long game

There no doubt was a tinge of envy from SDSU supporters, playing BYU. The mid-major school from the West reached the promised land of power conference athletics; the Aztecs have not.

After more than a decade in the Mountain West, BYU left for independent football and WCC basketball in 2011. It was a bold play and one freighted with the risk of sinking into irrelevance as they scrambled to fill a football schedule and tried to sell recruits with no league championship to play for.

Signing a long-term football contract with ESPN helped, though, providing the platform to build its national brand that ultimately elicited an invitation from the Big 12.

“We called those the two pillars — exposure and access,” BYU Athletic Director Tom Holmoe said earlier this year. “In hindsight, I think we made progress in both those areas. Our numbers grew as far as people watching us, and then our fan base grew.”

The Big 12 has been the right move for the athletic budget as well as football and several other sports. The women’s soccer team is a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and beat Utah State 2-0 in its first-round game Friday night across the street from the Marriott Center. Women’s volleyball is ranked No. 12.

Men’s basketball?

We’ll see.

After Friday’s grind-it-out win against SDSU, coach Mark Pope noted apprehensively: “That’s what we have in the Big 12. We get 18 of these in a row.”

Next season, when the 14-team conference adds two games, it will be 20.

Pope is trying to keep a brave face, especially after highly-coveted Samford transfer Ques Glover left BYU for conference foe Kansas State in August for a bigger NIL offer. and the Cougars were picked 13^th in the preseason Big 12 media poll.

“Clearly, we have a lot of work to do in any league that we’re going to be in, especially the best league in the country,” Pope said earlier this year. “It’s super scary to play the long game in athletics. It’s really, really scary. But for us, it’s the right thing to do. And I’ve got all of the faith in the world that it is going to pay off incredible dividends.

“But we’re definitely playing the long game.”