LAS VEGAS _ San Diego State has been a pretty darn good basketball team for several years now. It's just not very good in the Mountain West Tournament championship game.
A day after overcoming a 16-point lead, the fifth-ranked and top-seeded Aztecs squandered one Saturday and lost, 59-56, against second-seeded Utah State in the conference tournament final at UNLV's Thomas & Mack Center _ just as they had a year earlier.
It's becoming a familiar feeling. For all the banners hanging in Viejas Arena, only one in the last nine years is for a conference tournament title. They are now 1-6 in their last seven finals, with the lone win coming in 2018 by a team that had been buried in the standings and won nine straight to close the season.
They have been the No. 1 seed five times now and reached the final as the No. 1 seed five times. And lost it four times.
If it was any consolation, this one was closer than the others. It took a long fall-away 3 by Utah State's Sam Merrill with 2.6 seconds left (and KJ Feagin draped all over him) to clinch it.
Inbounding from the opposite baseline, the Aztecs ran a play that got Malachi Flynn the ball at midcourt. He took a dribble and launched a 40-footer that hung in the air for interminable seconds before bouncing off the back rim ... and front rim ... and out.
That drops the Aztecs to 30-2 and, perhaps, off the 1 line for NCAA Tournament seeding. That might not be the worst thing in the world, though, since it likely would slot them in the West Regional at Staples Center in Los Angeles instead of traveling to New York or Houston for the regionals as a 1 seed.
It also gives the conference's automatic NCAA Tournament spot to Utah State (25-8), which had been bouncing around the bubble for the past month.
The Aztecs had led by 16 in the first half and were on the verge of blowing out the Aggies, who trimmed the margin to eight at the half and took the lead on _ what else _ a Merrill 3 with 8:52 to go.
SDSU still led 56-55 inside a minute to go on Flynn's elbow jumper. Merrill, an 89.8% shooter from the line, missed a free throw but made the second to tied it. The Aztecs went to the other end, and Flynn made his go-to move _ dribbling hard to his left and stepping back to a 3.
No good.
Utah State opted against calling a timeout, and the seconds ticked down as Merrill dribbled near midcourt against Feagin. With five seconds left, he dribbled hard and stepped back for a 28-footer.
Swiiiiiiish.
Merrill, back in the form that earned him 2018-19 Mountain West player of the year honors, finished with 27 points thanks to six 3s. Center Neemias Queta had 15 points. The rest of the team combined for 17.
The Aztecs got 16 points from Flynn but on 6 of 20 shooting. Yanni Wetzell had 12, and Feagin added 11. The other two starters had rough days: Matt Mitchell and Jordan Schakel combined for four points on 1 of 10 shooting.
SDSU's undoing was 34.4-percent shooting and seven second-half turnovers after having none for the first 24 minutes.
The first half was largely what you'd expect from teams that played the two previous days and had, in Utah State's case, only about 14 { hours after it left the arena Friday night following the late semifinal.
They had dead legs, and dead legs mean missed shots. They combined to miss 20 of their first 25 attempts.
Part of that was the game featured statistically the Mountain West's top two teams in defensive efficiency. But a lot of that was just missing open shots.
The difference was that SDSU started making a few and Utah State kept clanking them. And this: The Aztecs didn't have a turnover in the first half, and the Aggies had eight.
The toxic brew of bad shooting and bad ballhandling led to exactly 13 minutes (and 19 possessions) without a basket by the Aggies, and 11-0 and 8-0 runs by the Aztecs. The lead grew to 16 before Merrill finally found his range and made three straight. Diogo Brito's 3 at the halftime buzzer closed the margin to 29-21.
But the Aggies kept coming, infused with confidence from the close of the first half, thankful the Aztecs had let them back in the game. They opened the second half by making 9 of 13 shots, including 5 of 6 behind the arc _ most by a suddenly unguardable Merrill.
Reversing a trend of SDSU's previous five games, when teams shot lights-out in the first half and were shut down in the second, Utah State shot 30.4% in the first and 56% (14 of 25) in the second. It was more pronounced from behind the arc: 3 of 14 versus 6 of 10.
