It’s the Continental Tire Main Event, and San Diego State just got a flat.
Good thing Continental sells run-flats.
The Aztecs blew a 12-point lead in the closing minutes of regulation, went to overtime on a controversial foul call with a second left, then somehow gutted out a wild 100-97 win against Washington to prevail in the four-team tournament at T-Mobile Arena.
It took 34 points and 17 rebounds in 41 leg-wobbling minutes from Jaedon LeDee, plus a clutch steal by Lamont Butler with 15 seconds left to seal the victory.
SDSU appeared to be cruising along, cracking the code on Washington’s surprise zone, fouling out its starting center and leading by 12 with 4½ minutes left in regulation and still by seven inside a minute to go.
A turnover and a couple missed free throws allowed the Huskies to pull within a point with 6.1 seconds left in regulation. The Aztecs inbounded into the corner to Reese Waters, who was trapped and tied up — and the possession arrow pointed to the Huskies.
The Aztecs seemed to have made the winning stop, with the buzzer sounding and Paul Mulcahy hoisting an airball.
But official Tony Padilla ran over from the opposite side of the floor with his fist in the air indicating a foul against Micah Parrish. They went to the video monitors, not to review the foul but whether it occurred before time expired.
They determined it had with 1.0 seconds left. Mulcahy’s first free throw rolled out, but the second nestled into the net and sent the game to overtime.
Washington scored on its first six possessions of OT, but the Aztecs kept pace and finally got a stop after a review overturned an out-of-bounds call. Down one inside 40 seconds to go, LeDee drove right and banked in a shot for SDSU’s first lead of overtime.
The Huskies got the ball to leading scorer Keion Brooks Jr. (22 points) and he worked at the top against LeDee. But Butler swept in from behind to swipe the ball and dribbled to the other end, where he found Waters. He was fouled, his free throws pushed the lead to three, the Aztecs got a stop and this time the buzzer sounded without a whistle.
San Diego State and Washington players crash the boards following a second-half free throw attempt by the Huskies.
(Mark Ziegler)
Of course, an SDSU win was probably expected because the tournament is in Las Vegas. The Aztecs are now 15-1 in their last 16 games of any kind in the city and 7-1 in their last four nonconference tournaments here.
Parrish added 15 points, and Waters had 13. And sophomore forward Elijah Saunders had the best game of his young career with 16 points after making all three of his attempts behind the arc.
The big matchup question for SDSU was Brooks, the 6-7 Kentucky transfer who entered the game leading the Pac-12 in scoring at 23.3 points. And what happens: Washington wins the tip, and 14 seconds later Brooks drains a 3 over Elijah Saunders.
But the defensive game plan to provide help — or at least make Brooks think it was coming — kicked in and he took only five more shots the rest of the half and went to the locker room with eight points.
The Huskies opened a seven-point lead, and coach Brian Dutcher appeared to be debating whether to call timeout to stem the tide. He didn’t, and his team responded with a 6-0 run to make it a one-possession game again — triggered by the second of two 3s of the half by Saunders.
The Aztecs took a 43-40 lead into the break when Darrion Trammell hit a step-back 3 at the buzzer, giving them their fourth game with a half of 43 or more points in the five-game season.
The Huskies shot a blistering 55.2 percent in the opening 20 minutes, but they were also going to the east basket — where teams, for whatever reason, shot considerably better in Friday’s two games (48 compared to 33 percent at the dreaded west basket).
The key stat, though: SDSU had only one turnover in the first half, five days after coughing up 18 against Long Beach State.
Things seemed to be going fine early in the second half, expanding the lead to seven, until this happened: Washington went zone.
It brought back bad memories of the 2021 NCAA Tournament in Indianapolis and Syracuse’s 2-3 zone. The connection is Mike Hopkins, John Boeheim’s longtime assistant at Syracuse before coming to Washington seven years ago and bringing the unorthodox zone with him.
The twist: The Huskies, after a few underwhelming seasons, appeared to have abandoned it – so much that they hadn’t played it all season until going down early in the second half Sunday night and figuring, what do we have to lose?
The Aztecs scored on their first possession against it but then went dry on their next seven, and a seven-point lead was erased as quickly as a stack of chips at the craps table.
But familiarity eventually bred success, and the Aztecs — behind back-to-back-to-back LeDee baskets — rebuilt the margin to seven as Washington’s two bigs, Frank Kepnang and Braxton Meah, both had four fouls with 12 minutes to go and eventually fouled out.
Notable
Next up: Cal on Saturday at JSerra High School in San Juan Capistrano. Tipoff is 4 p.m. SDSU hosts Fresno State at 7:30 p.m. at Snapdragon in its final football game of the season … SDSU had the same officiating crew as Friday night against Saint Mary’s, a rarity in college basketball: Padilla, Ray Natili and Michael Irving … Xavier won the third-place game 66-49 against Saint Mary’s. That game had the same officials as Friday’s Xavier-Washington game … Koren Johnson, who decommitted from SDSU two days before the 2021 November signing window, had nine points in 19 minutes off the bench for Washington.
