Three thoughts on San Diego State’s 76-67 win against Cal in the SoCal Showcase on Saturday at JSerra High in San Juan Capistrano:
1. The last play
The Aztecs faced their first, true last-second possession of the season where they were tied or trailing by a basket, calling timeout with 16 seconds left in regulation and the score knotted at 63. (They technically had one against Washington, but that was with 1.0 second left and 94 feet to go.)
Here’s what they did:
Inbounded the ball to Darrion Trammell, drained the clock inside 10 seconds and ran the same play that resulted in a Micah Parrish layup on their opening possession of the second half.
Elijah Saunders sets a down screen on the right block that frees Jaedon LeDee on the wing. LeDee spins toward the right corner and fakes a pass to Parrish, who goes backdoor while his three teammates occupy the helpside defenders with screens on the weak side.
Except on the final play, LeDee spun and got past Cal’s Fardaws Aimaq … and just kept going, even as Parrish back-cut along the baseline. Problem was, he drove into Parrish’s defender. Another defender sniffed out the play from the weak side. Aimaq made it a triple-team, and the runaway train that was LeDee tried a reverse layup that didn’t hit the rim.
“It’s what I wanted: Jaedon downhill to the basket,” said coach Brian Dutcher, whose team has a quick turnaround before hosting Division II Point Loma Nazarene on Monday night. “There might have been contact, but he wasn’t on balance. He has to get on balance on that play and go through contact if he wants to get a foul. … He’s got to get onto two feet. That way he’ll have a better chance to draw fouls.”
The other notable part of the play: Lamont Butler wasn’t part of it.
Dutcher is a proponent of sticking with who’s playing best down the stretch, no matter the personnel, and Saturday was merely the latest example.
There were times last season when Matt Bradley, their best shot-maker on most nights, wasn’t on the floor late in the games. Now Butler, who made the most famous buzzer-beater in school history, was watching from the bench after a rough afternoon (1 point, 0 of 5 shooting, foul trouble, you name it).
“If it comes to the last possession, maybe I’ll let him shoot it the next time,” Dutcher said. “Jaedon didn’t make it. That’s basketball. You try to ride the hot hand and who’s playing well at the time. Darrion was making some shots and was dangerous, and Lamont was having a tough night offensively.”
The Aztecs’ Micah Parrish, left, and Elijah Saunders try to block a shot by Cal’s Jaylon Tyson during the second half.
(Hayne Palmour IV/For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
2. The boards
A week into summer workouts, Dutcher was asked for an early assessment of his team.
“I have two concerns,” he said. “Rim protection and rebounding.”
The first hasn’t materialized to the extent many feared without 6-foot-10 Nathan Mensah and his 236 career blocks, second most in school history. The Aztecs don’t have a bona fide shot swatter in the current rotation, but they are still averaging a combined 3.8 blocks per game compared to 3.9 last season.
The second, however, has.
The Aztecs are 5-1 but dead even in rebound margin at 228-228, which ranks ninth in the 11-team Mountain West. The 38.0 rebounds allowed per game are dead last.
The big problem has been on the defensive glass, where opponents are grabbing 31.2 percent of their misses — ranking the Aztecs 224th nationally in that category and their worst in 12 seasons.
In the opener, Cal State Fullerton had 11 offensive boards in the first half alone. Then they held Long Beach State to three for the entire game. Then Saint Mary’s got 16.
Cal had, gulp, 21. Aimaq, a 6-foot-11, 246-pound transfer from Texas Tech, had eight by himself.
“We were concerned about rebounding and it showed again today,” Dutcher said, unsolicited, in opening his postgame remarks. “Sometimes we’ll outrebound an opponent or two and maybe feel a little better about ourselves, but we have to improve our rebounding if we’re going to be a really good team. We put work on it every day, but it has to translate.”
The SoCal Challenge between SDSU and Cal was played in JSerra High’s 2,000-seat gym in in San Juan Capistrano.
(Hayne Palmour IV/For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
3. The atmosphere
When explaining why he agreed to play a game in a high school gym 60 miles from campus, Dutcher said he expected a “Maui atmosphere” and a partisan home crowd.
He got both.
What makes the Maui Invitational unique is the quality of the field and the idyllic setting of the islands, but also the size of the venue, the 2,400-seat Lahaina Civic Center. It’s routinely packed, with spectators mere feet from the benches creating a different kind of vibe from a 12,000-seat arena.
That was the case Saturday. Fans lined up outside JSerra High’s 2,000-seat Pavilion more than an hour before the game, waiting for the doors to open and claim their general admission bleacher seats. Thirty minutes before tip-off, it was full — full of red and black, with a few sprinkles of blue and gold. Fans spontaneously broke into the “I believe” chant and regularly echoed “Let’s go Aztecs” through the building.
“It was a small, intimate gym packed with Aztecs fans,” Dutcher said. “It was a great atmosphere. They helped us through the hard moments. Our fans travel great. They were here supporting us.”
Cal coach Mark Madsen spent the week at JSerra High, playing in the SoCal Challenge tournament there on Monday and Wednesday, but it was nothing like this for games against UTEP and Tulane.
“We knew we were going to have some great support from the Cal Bears,” Madsen said. “But we also knew, hey, we’re an hour and five minutes away from San Diego State with no traffic. We knew the fans down there are passionate.”
The players seemed to like it, a flashback to their high school days, to SRO crowds stuffed into a steamy gym on a Friday night.
“A really great atmosphere,” Cal forward Grant Newell said. “There are the games everyone wants to be in.”
