Strong second half lifts No. 24 San Diego State to crosstown win over USD

Mark Zeigler, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Dec 8, 2024

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

SAN DIEGO — San Diego State’s basketball team was playing with matches Saturday night at Viejas Arena.

The whole building, and a promising season, nearly went up in flames.

The No. 24-ranked Aztecs blew a double-digit lead in the first half, trailed in the second half and ultimately pulled away for a 74-57 victory against a University of San Diego team that was a 24.5-point underdog, was buried at No. 329 (out of 364) in the NET metric, nearly lost to a Division III school at home last week and was four days removed from a 37-point spanking at unranked Arizona State.

But SDSU coach Brian Dutcher always tells his players that they have a perpetual target on their back and the team you see on film is not the one you’ll see on the floor, and that especially applies to crosstown foes with a massive chip on their shoulder.

In the opener, they struggled to put away a UC San Diego team playing its first game as a fully-fledged member of Division I.

Now, a four-point game midway through the second half against the Toreros.

The lineup that turned the tide was not the one that started the game. Backup bigs Pharaoh Compton and Miles Heide began terrorizing USD in the paint and on the glass, particularly with best Toreros big Steven Jamerson II in foul trouble.

It came on a night when freshman Magoon Gwath went from 25 points and 10 rebounds three days earlier at Fresno State to zero and one in limited minutes after appearing to be shaken up in the first half and subbing out for good 55 seconds into the second half.

The other three bigs stepped up, though. Compton had 12 points and six rebounds. Heide, in his best game of the season, had eight and nine. Jared Coleman-Jones, after shooting 2 of 8 in the first half, finished with 13 and six.

The other saviors were in the backcourt. Nick Boyd continually got defenders on his hip for and-one layups en route to 17 points. Miles Byrd had 13. Freshman Taj DeGourville, whose previous high against Division I opposition was five points, had nine, all in the opening 12 minutes. Wayne McKinney III did not score in 17 minutes against his former team

That improves the Aztecs to 6-2 with two nonconference games remaining: Wednesday here against Cal Baptist and, following a 10-day break for final exams, Dec. 21 against Cal in San Jose.

If you saw the first half three nights earlier at Fresno State, you saw this one. The Aztecs start slow, surge, take a double-digit lead, then fall apart and it’s a game again at the break.

The Aztecs have struggled keeping opponents off the offensive boards all season, but that wasn’t a problem Saturday. At halftime, the Toreros had just two, and both those were technically “team” rebounds from the ball going out of bounds.

The problem was simply putting the ball in the basket. SDSU shot 37.1% in the first half.

The Toreros weren’t doing much at the other end … except for Bendji Pierre.

The 6-foot-8, 230-pound senior forward who came to USD from Indian River JC in Florida was averaging 2.5 points this season with a high of six. He was shooting 21.1% overall. He was 0 of 10 from 3, so excuse the Aztecs for not giving him much perimeter love defensively.

Then he made one. And another. And another.

By halftime, he had 11 points on 4 of 6 shooting and single-handedly willed the Toreros from 11 down to 33-31. He finished with 17 points on 5 of 11 shooting behind the arc.

Rest of the team: 1 of 21.

—Notable

One of the officials was Mike Littlewood. You might remember the name. The BYU alum and former BYU baseball coach worked six SDSU games last season (the Aztecs went 3-3 with him and 23-8 without him), including a March 7 loss at UNLV in which he called a rare technical foul on coach Brian Dutcher. This was his first SDSU game since. Also working the game was Randy Richardson— for the fourth time in eight games this season

—The Aztecs wore red uniforms for the first time this season.

—Compton was called for a technical foul with 1:43 left in an 18-point game for taunting after a Byrd 3.