Most years, when San Diego State arrives at the Mountain West men’s basketball tournament in Las Vegas, it has a pretty good idea of what lies ahead.
Most times, the Aztecs are comfortably in the NCAA Tournament no matter what happens at Thomas & Mack Center. A few times, they’ve known they had to win the Mountain West Tournament and claim the conference’s automatic berth to go dancing.
Never, though, in the eight-year Brian Dutcher era has it been quite like this.
They’re in the NCAA Tournament … sort of … maybe … possibly … they hope.
A win Thursday in the 2:30 p.m. quarterfinal against Boise State, and they should be in.
A loss, which would end a 17-year streak of quarterfinal victories, and they still might be in. Or they might not be. Or they could be if the rest of the bubble falters. Or they could not be if crazy things start happening in conference tournaments across the country.
“I don’t try to worry too much about that,” Dutcher said of life on the bubble. “I just try to get the team ready to play at its very best, and we’ve played well in March. We will go there, pour everything into that Boise game and then live with the results.”
“Until our name is called on Selection Sunday,” point guard Nick Boyd said, “we’re fighting for our lives.”
The players are saying all the right things, but the bigger question is whether they’re feeling them.
This team has done desperation well, getting a buzzer-beater in overtime to avert a resume-crushing loss at last-place Air Force, coming from 21 down against San Jose State at home and 17 down on the road, needing a 20-0 run to dispatch ninth-place Wyoming, getting must-have games against New Mexico and Boise State down the stretch and taking care of business on Senior Night against Nevada on Saturday.
This team hasn’t done complacency well, though. It blew an 18-point lead at Viejas Arena against Utah State. It routinely struggled as double-digit favorites against the bottom of the conference. It looked flat in a dreary 74-67 loss at UNLV last week.
It’s the predictable bane of their youngest roster in 13 seasons, of a rotation with six freshmen or sophomores, the wild swings of emotion, the vacillation of performance.
“I think we have a lot of to prove after this conference slate,” said Boyd, whose team was picked fourth in the preseason poll and finished fourth. “It took a toll on the team, in my opinion. We didn’t have our best nights all the time, whether it was focus or just energy or execution. Now we have a tournament-style event where we get a chance to show the league who we are.
“It’s March. I’m ready to bang.”
The problem Thursday: So is Boise State.
The Broncos had a late charge for an NCAA at-large berth doused with cold water last Friday in a home loss to surging Colorado State. Some bracketologists project the Broncos, the preseason favorites in the Mountain West, could still get an at-large invite but almost all agree it would require a win Thursday against an SDSU team that swept the regular-season series by a combined 25 points.
The fourth-seeded Aztecs (21-8, 14-6) are fighting for their season … maybe.
The fifth-seeded Broncos (22-9, 14-6) are fighting for their season … definitely.
“You don’t want to overdo the emotions, because our guys will play hard,” Boise State coach Leon Rice said. “They know what we’re playing for. You work all summer, you work all fall, we talk about how long a season it is, to be in a position to play for things in March. The higher the stakes, the harder it gets. That’s where we are now.”
That’s the macro view.
The micro view involves tactical nuance that hinges on the availability of SDSU 7-foot forward Magoon Gwath, who on Tuesday was named the Mountain West Freshman of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and an honorable mention all-conference selection.
Figure Rice voted for him. Gwath had six of SDSU’s 10 blocks in the most recent meeting, a 64-47 Aztecs win at Viejas Arena. One was a highlight-reel pin high on the backboard of a layup by all-conference forward Tyson Degenhart, who is 31 points shy of becoming Boise State’s all-time scoring leader. Two others were against Degenhart on the same sequence.
“That’s not an anomaly,” Rice said. “They’ve got a lot of bodies to throw out there and do that, and they’re elite at it. They’re the best in the country.”
Gwath landed wrong after another prodigious block 2½ weeks ago at Utah State and hyperextended his right knee. An MRI ruled out ligament damage or surgery, and he has vigorously rehabbed toward a return that Dutcher has hoped would come at the conference tournament.
It’s going to be close. Gwath is running on the treadmill and pedaling on the exercycle, plus shooting and doing dribbling drills on the side. At practice Tuesday, media viewed him warming up with the team wearing a knee brace. Some expected him to suit up Thursday, but that’s still no guarantee he’ll play.
Gwath was made available to the media Tuesday but on the condition that he wouldn’t speak about his knee until he receives full clearance from doctors. He was scheduled to be evaluated again Wednesday morning.
“Magoon is really day-to-day,” Dutcher said. “We’ll see what it is.”
Whether he plays or not changes things. Boise State has struggled to shoot 3s against the Aztecs — 10 of 48 combined in the two games — and prefers to attack the basket. That’s a fool’s errand with the nation’s No. 7 shot blocker parked in the paint, as the Broncos learned Feb. 15 at Viejas Arena, when 10 of their 37 shot attempts inside the arc were rejected (and many more were altered).
“We beat Boise in large part because of our ability to block shots at the rim,” Dutcher said. “Without (Gwath), that kind of goes away to a degree, although we have other guys like Jared Coleman-Jones and Miles Byrd who block shots, too, but not at the level Magoon does.
“I’m sure they would feel better about their chances attacking the rim, which they do at a high level, and finishing in this game. We have to figure out a way to put some resistance if Magoon is not in the lineup.”
Miles Heide, a 6-10 sophomore, has started the last four games without Gwath and filled the void in other ways. He’s blocked only two shots in those four starts but made 17 straight shots — you read that right — while averaging 10.3 points per game.
Coleman-Jones has had a late-season resurgence, sliding to the 4-spot that Gwath occupied and making a 3-pointer in each of the last four games. Freshman Pharaoh Compton had a season-high 13 points against Nevada.
“The hottest group on our team right now is our bigs,” Miles Byrd said.
History is certainly on their side, too. The Aztecs have won their last 17 quarterfinals and are 4-1 all-time against Boise State in the conference tournament. Their 47 wins at Thomas & Mack since 2008-09 are the most by any team in the nation at a venue it doesn’t call home.
“One and done is an opportunity to pour everything you have out on the court at that moment,” Boyd said, “and if you win, you get the opportunity to do the same thing in the next game. I love it. It’s what I love to do as a basketball player, to compete at the highest level. No looking back now.”
