Always thought far too much is made about teams getting “payback” victories in the regular season over teams that beat them in playoff competition the previous season.
If the Chargers were to beat the Jets next November would that really be “payback” for the playoff loss last Sunday? Of course not.
Nevertheless, both the SDSU men’s and women’s basketball teams did pick up a small measure of redemption this week. The men defeated Utah, 70-68, in Salt Lake City on Tuesday night.
Then the women followed suit with a 51-42 win over the Utes on Wednesday night at Viejas Arena, led by preseason Mountain West Conference Player of the Year Jene Morris, who scored a game-high 22 points.
In bouncing back from its first conference defeat of the season Saturday at TCU, Beth Burns’ team (12-5, 4-1) moved back into sole possession of first place. Utah, now with a long road ahead to repeat as MWC champs fell to 10-7, 1-3.
“It’s always going to be a tough fight against Utah,” said Burns, whose team has split the last six meetings with the Utes following a stretch of 16-consecutive losses. “They play great defense, and they made things hard for us. But we found a way to get just enough done and protect our home court.”
SDSU, which has now won 13-straight conference games at home, plays at BYU on Saturday. The Cougars (12-4, 3-1) are just a half-game back of the Aztecs, as is TCU.
Last March, in the MWC tournament, both the men’s and women’s championship games featured the Aztecs and Utah. And Utah won both. In the women’s game, Utah attempted 28 free throws to SDSU’s eight. In the men’s contest, Utah was awarded 28 free throws to the Aztecs’ seven.
Without question, the pills were bitter to swallow. But both SDSU hoop squads feel a bit better now.
The women do because they were able to hold Utah to just one field goal over the final eight minutes, outscoring the Utes, 12-3, to breakaway from a 39-39 tie. Point guard Quenese Davis and forward Allison Duffy hit back-to-back three-pointers to give SDSU a 45-39 lead before Utah’s Kalee Whipple answered with a three or her own to make it 45-42 with 5:51 left.
Utah would not score again, however, as the Aztecs won for the eighth time in their last nine games and continued to look more and more like the team that advanced to the second round of last year’s NCAA Tournament.
“Offensively we still are a work in progress,” said Burns, who earned her 300th-career victory last week. “We need to do a better job of getting the ball inside and scoring. Our perimeter game saved us (Wednesday night), but we can’t always rely on that.”
Morris made three three-pointers in the game and provided nearly half (14 pts.) of her team’s offense in the first half as SDSU took a 29-25 lead into the intermission. But her more important contribution to the victory came at the other end, where she limited Whipple, the conference’s second-leading scorer at 16.1 points per game, to a single basket in the opening 20 minutes.
Point guard Janita Badon became the Utes’ top offensive threat with Whipple blanketed and scored 11 points in the first half. So Burns switched Morris to guard her in the second half and Badon managed only one more bucket. Duffy was instrumental in the defensive strategy, taking over against Whipple and limiting her to just two field goals after halftime.
“People ask me what’s special about Jene (Morris),” said Burns. “And I tell them that along with all of her scoring, we also ask her to guard the other team’s best player on a nightly basis. She wins for us at both ends of the floor.”
– Ello –
