LARAMIE, Wyo. _ The halftime promotion at Wyoming's Arena-Auditorium on Wednesday night was two guys dribbling a basketball the length of the floor while carrying grocery baskets in their other hand and loading items in them along the way before making a layup.
The winner got a $100 gift card to Ridley's Family Markets.
San Diego State didn't get a gift card, but it did collect another victory on its shopping expedition into the high lonesome. The nation's seventh-ranked team that sometimes has a maddening habit of playing down to the level of its competition didn't, leading the Cowboys by 15 in the first half and winning, 72-52, to improve to 16-0.
It was a quick trip. The Aztecs were on the ground in Laramie for all of 27 hours, chartering directly from San Diego the night before and leaving immediately after the game.
They also chartered in their last trip to the Gem City of the Plains, two days after Christmas in 2017. But that departure was delayed by a closed-door, open-mouthed session in the locker room that lasted 23 minutes following an embarrassing second half that saw the Aztecs trail by 19 and lose, 82-69.
The postgame talk this year probably went more like this: "Let's get to the airport and get out of here, fellas."
After winning with relative ease at preseason Mountain West favorite Utah State on Saturday, junior guard Malachi Flynn talked about the frustrations of making things closer than necessary against inferior opposition.
"It's been going that way," Flynn said, "but we've definitely got to stop doing that and be who we are every night, no matter who we're playing. It's just natural that if you're playing a better team, you're going to be more ready for it. That's natural for every basketball player, I think. But we've definitely got to fix that."
The Cowboys (5-12, 0-5) certainly qualify under the "no matter who you play" category, and the Aztecs didn't mess around despite losing yet another rotation player.
They were already without Nathan Mensah, who didn't make the trip with his ongoing respiratory condition, and Aguek Arop, who made the trip but ran the arena stairs while the team held its morning shootaround and did not suit up for a seventh straight game. Then Joel Mensah, the first big off the bench, was a pregame scratch with a lower back problem that he hoped would loosen up and didn't.
That meant Nolan Narain, who has played six Div. I minutes all season, got eight in the first half. That also meant freshman Keshad Johnson got in before garbage time (and had five points in his first three-minute shift).
Whoever was on the floor, though, it didn't much matter. The last two ranked SDSU teams to come to the Arena-Auditorium, affectionately known as the Dome of Doom, both lost. One scored nine points in the first half. Another, ranked No. 5 with a 20-game win streak, got dunked on four straight possessions.
The Aztecs won the tip and took a 2-0 lead on Yanni Wetzell's two-handed dunk. The Cowboys went to the other end, couldn't find anything open and Hunter Maldonado launched a desperation 3 at the shot-clock buzzer. Swish _ Cowboys 3, Aztecs 2.
Another trip to their personal house of horrors?
Nope. Wyoming never led again. The Aztecs needed just six minutes to get nine points, led 32-17 late in the first half, pushed the margin to as much as 23 and improved to 5-0 in the Mountain West.
Malachi Flynn had 19 points, three rebounds, four assists and three steals, showing why earlier in the day he was named to the midseason watch list for the Wooden Award, the de facto national player of the year. The only other SDSU players to make it: Kawhi Leonard (2011) and Jamaal Franklin (2013).
Wetzell made all seven of his shots and finished with 17 points in 26 productive minutes. Jordan Schakel made three 3s en route to 11 points and seven rebounds.
The Aztecs shot 52.1%, their second straight game over 50 _ both on the road. And they held Wyoming to 33.3% shooting overall and 5 of 22 on 3s.
Maldonado had 18 points, nine coming on 3s jacked up at the shot-clock buzzer. Hunter Thompson had 15. Everyone on Wyoming not named Hunter had 19 points combined.
