Chris Ello

The Guy In This Movie Poster Knows No More Than I Do About Aztec Hoops

LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Seriously, if I had the answers, I’d own this place rather than just visiting it.

But you want to know what’s going to happen with the SDSU men’s and women’s basketball teams here this week in the Mountain West Conference tournament, so I’ll go ahead and give it my best shot.

Let’s start with Beth Burns’ Jekyll-and-Hyde women’s team. Just the fact that I refer to them as such should give you the idea — that I have no idea. And frankly neither does anybody who has been around this team all season (as I have). When they’re good, they’re very good, as they were a couple of weeks ago in an 84-61 demolition of conference champion TCU.

Too often this season, however, the Aztec gals have brought less than their best to the floor. The result was a disjointed 18-10 regular season and a disappointing No. 3-seed in the conference tournament. Preseason favorites coming off their second-round appearance in the NCAA Tournament a year ago (with four starters returning), they’re left with the difficult task of winning three games in four days here in order to return to the Big Dance. Will they? Answer below (because I need more time to think about it).

On the men’s side, you can go a couple of different ways as well. Either the young, precocious Aztecs display their array of talents for three consecutive days and win the whole thing, or….they do just enough to give their long-suffering fans a sniff of hope before falling just short of being included in March Madness.

Until further notice, it’s almost impossible not to expect the latter. After all, isn’t coming up just inches short pretty much the definition of being an Aztec? Under Steve Fisher, SDSU men’s basketball has been good (real good if you compare with the pre-Fisher years), but never great. They snuck into a couple of NCAA Tourneys but were bounced immediately both times (once by Indiana in a game, frankly, they should have won).

For the most part, however, the Aztecs have been a perfect fit for the NIT. Win 20 games. Win a couple of nice conference games at home. Never, ever get a key non-conference win. Never, ever snag that one conference road win that could put them over the hump. Do just enough in the MWC Continue Reading →

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