SAN DIEGO _ Maybe it's the green uniforms. Or the mustang logo. Or disinterest from facing purportedly inferior Cal State University brethren.
But there's just something about Cal Poly that brings out the worst in San Diego State, particularly on shots launched beyond the black arc painted on the Viejas Arena floor.
The team that hasn't lost a game this season beat the team that has won only one Division I game, 73-57, on Saturday, just as another ranked Aztecs team did in this building nine years earlier. If you saw that game, an ugly 51-45 SDSU win, you got the general gist of this one.
Exhibit A: Early in the second half, the Aztecs were 1 of their last 30 attempts behind the 3-point line against the Mustangs, which, as former SDSU coach Smokey Gaines would say, was one more than a dead man. They were 0 of 18 in 2010 and opened 1 of 12 on Saturday against statistically one of the nation's worst 3-point defenses.
"That's crazy," senior forward Yanni Wetzell said.
"(Maybe) it's something they're doing, I don't know," coach Brian Dutcher said. "But we could not make a 3, and we had some good looks. We had good 3-point shooters missing ... When you're missing good shots, you can't be all mad at the offense. Sometimes the ball just doesn't go in. These are the games you have to rely on your defense and grind it out and just find a way to win. And that's what we did."
At least SDSU didn't score 16 points in the first half this time, although it did have only 22 with two minutes to go and trailed a 2-11 team that that entered the day 321 spots lower in the NCAA's NET metric and took nine hours by bus to get to San Diego on Friday with traffic from the closure of I-5 for snow in the Tejon Pass.
Aesthetics aside, the Aztecs (13-0) concluded the nonconference portion of the schedule undefeated for only the fourth time in school history and the second time since Herbert Hoover was president in 1930. The other was the 2010-11 team which, if it's any consolation, also struggled against the Mustangs here (although, it should be noted, Kawhi Leonard was sick and didn't play) and still finished 34-3.
"Our goal was to have an undefeated December, and we did that," Dutcher said of his Aztecs team that entered the day No. 1 in NET and 15th in the Associated Press poll. "We have to take great pleasure in that. We're going into the new year as one of three undefeated teams in the country. It can't be all doom and gloom after a game where we don't play great basketball."
The next AP poll is released Monday, and the Aztecs gave voters reasons why they shouldn't be No. 15 and why they should, all in the space of about three minutes.
Late in the first half, Cal Poly had twice as many turnovers (14) as baskets (seven) ... and led 23-22 after a 10-0 run fueled by a hash of turnovers, missed layups and clanked free throws by the Aztecs. It was the first time they had trailed in 10 days and 95-plus minutes of game action.
And then ...
A ferocious, frenetic 9-0 run to close the half for a 31-23 lead. It started after (of course) a missed 3, when Wetzell slapped away the ball on the rebound and scored inside. It ended after (of course) another missed 3, when Matt Mitchell flew down the lane with his trimmed-down physique, slammed home the rebound with two hands and was fouled for a 3-point play.
That got the season's first sellout at Viejas Arena on its feet. The momentum bled into the second half, and rookie Mustangs coach John Smith was calling timeout with 18:19 left and his team down 14. And another with 15:43 to go and his team down 17 (which was followed by turnovers on five of the next six possessions). With six minutes to go, the margin was 24.
The Mustangs finished with 23 turnovers, shot 34.6% and were outscored 34-14 in the paint.
Malachi Flynn led the Aztecs with 14 points, five rebounds, seven assists and five steals, but that was tempered by 4-of-12 shooting and an uncharacteristic three turnovers. Wetzell had 12 points and eight rebounds, but he missed several chippies at the rim and was 2 of 6 at the line.
Jordan Schakel, KJ Feagin and Mitchell were a combined 2 of 12 on 3s. Flynn was 3 of 8, but one of those banked in.
"Shots didn't fall and it was frustrating," Wetzell said, "but you can't do anything about it. You have to just keep letting them go."
SDSU finally heated up behind the arc, at least compared to the first half, and finished 6 of 27. That's 22.2% against a team that ranked 341st out of 353 teams in 3-point defense at 38.3 percent.
Another concern: Cal Poly, whose only wins are against Div. I Sienna (by four points) and NAIA Simpson, outrebounded the Aztecs 40-37 and had a 27-24 advantage in bench scoring.
"There are some things that we tried to do against them to take away their strengths," Cal Poly's Smith said. "We did it for about 18 minutes, and then it fell apart."
The seasoned, reasoned side of Dutcher will brush this off as post-Christmas lethargy and some weird Mustang mojo. The paranoid side will lose sleep over what lies ahead.
The Mountain West season resumes now with arguably their trickiest stretch of the season. It starts New Year's Day against a Fresno State team that swept the Aztecs last season and gets them in a noon tip, when they historically have not played well (their last noon tip, ahem, was against San Jose State on Dec. 8).
Then they're at preseason conference favorite Utah State, at altitude in one of the nation's loudest arenas.
Then at Wyoming, where Aztecs teams ranked in top 15 have lost twice in the last eight years.
"When we play a step up in competition, then we're going to have to make some of those (shots)," Dutcher conceded. "If we don't, it's going to be harder to win."
