SAN DIEGO _ Give San Diego State's basketball team this much. It has chutzpah.
Remember how they used to wear red uniforms and had some of their most wrenching losses in recent history in them, and then stopped wearing them because of that?
And how they brought them back earlier this season against San Jose State, picked to finish last in the Mountain West, and needed a last-second 3 by Malachi Flynn to avoid what one respected analytics guru said would have been statistically the worst loss in modern college basketball history?
Well, they wore them again.
And won, 68-55 against Nevada on a night when, for a half at least, the Aztecs and their undefeated record looked eminently vulnerable.
Halftime score: Wolf Pack 35, No. 7 team 33.
The victory moves them to 19-0 and likely to climb from No. 7 to at least fourth _ matching the highest in school history _ when the new Associated Press poll is released Monday morning, after No. 3 Duke, No. 4 Auburn and No. 5 Butler all lost twice this week.
"Undefeated, undefeated," the sold-out (and really, really loud) Viejas Arena crowd chanted with 2:53 to go.
The Aztecs remained that way (and improved to 8-0 atop the Mountain West) with a 17-2 run early in the second half, and 17 points and a career-high 16 rebounds from fifth-year senior Yanni Wetzell. But really, they won the way they have all season.
With defense.
With stingy, stifling, suffocating, lock-down, shut-the-spigot-off, climb-in-your-jock D.
Nevada opened the second half shooting 3 of 25 and went eight minutes without a basket. Wolf Pack guard Jalen Harris had 16 points in the first half after going 4 of 5 beyond the arc; he had three points in the second half on 1-of-7 shooting.
Technically the Wolf Pack shot 6 of 35 in the second half (17.1 percent), although one of those baskets came when Wetzell inadvertently tipped in the ball going for a rebound off a Nevada miss. For the game, it was 28.1 percent.
Flynn added 14 points and seven assists for SDSU even though he shot 4 of 13 and missed his first free throw of 2020 (after making his first 27 of the calendar year). Jordan Schakel had 12 after finally finding his stroke from deep, and Matt Mitchell added 11.
The game figured to be decided not in the paint but on the perimeter. Nevada entered the day leading the Mountain West in made 3s (9.6 per game) and were second in accuracy (38.5%), and SDSU was eighth nationally in 3-point defense (26.7%).
Something had to give, and in the first half it was the Aztecs. The Wolf Pack's first basket came on a deep 3 from the left side by Harris, and it was an ominous portent. By halftime, the visitors had taken seven fewer shots but led by two largely because they were 7 of 13 behind the arc.
Wearing the fateful red uniforms and shooting the controversial Nike ball with a tracking chip, the Aztecs were 11 of 30 and went five-plus minutes without a basket late in the half. An 18-12 lead became a 28-24 deficit after Harris made yet another 3 (he was 4 of 5 in the opening 20 minutes).
Whatever was said in the locker room appeared to work.
Schakel, who had missed seven of his previous eight 3s, made one on the opening possession. Then Mitchell scored. Then Flynn did, prompting an early timeout from Nevada coach Steve Alford just 1:16 into the second half.
That worked, too. Harris missed his next three 3s, but the Wolf Pack grabbed offensive rebounds on consecutive possessions and tied it at 42 to silence Viejas. And then ... the 17-2 in which the only Nevada points came on Wetzell's tip.
SDSU remains at home to play Wyoming on Tuesday night. That could get them to 20-0, equaling the start of Kawhi Leonard's 2010-11 team. The record-breaker could come next Sunday at UNLV.
