For a school—and a city—constantly trying to come up with a sports tradition, the San Diego State Aztecs had a pretty good idea on Saturday night against 13th ranked BYU. On “Blackout Saturday” at Viejas Arena, the 12,414 fans in attendance came dressed all in black.
Then the SDSU mens’ basketball team came out on the court. Dressed all in white.
It was the first bad sign for an Aztecs squad that came out backward, recovered, and then surrendered a 15-0 second-half run, succumbing to the Cougars 71-69.
Jimmer Fredette, the likely Mountain West Conference player of the year, battled through mononucleosis to score a game-high 33 points, leading BYU (20-1, 5-0 MWC) to a road victory. The Aztecs (14-6, 3-3) saw their 14-game home winning streak come to an end.
After the jump, watch postgame video from Steve Fisher, check out a photo gallery from the game, and more! Continue Reading →
by Chris Ello on January 15, 2010
When you’re coming off a game in which you allowed your opponent to shoot an astonishing 63-percent from the field as the USD men’s basketball team did in losing at San Francisco last Sunday, you figure your coach — especially a guy like Bill Grier — is going to focus on nothing but defense when you get back to work in the gym.
So as the Toreros went through their paces this week at practice, they were certainly in a defensive frame of mind. Back in action Thursday night at the Jenny Craig Pavilion against Portland, however, it was a rather offensive performance that saddled them with a second consecutive West Coast Conference loss, this time a 63-54 setback to the Pilots.
The defense was much improved, limiting Portland to a 44.7-percent shooting effort. The offensive part, though, was at the other end of the floor. USD hit just 37-percent of its shots and scored only 24 points in the second half in falling to 8-11 overall and 1-2 in the WCC.
The Toreros led 38-36 with 16 minutes to play, but then went cold — hitting on just one of their 15 shots over the next 11 minutes as Portland (10-6, 1-1) eased its way through a 15-3 run and took control of the game.
619 Sports photo gallery: Portland vs. USD after the jump: Continue Reading →
