LAS VEGAS — The Nevada Wolf Pack is like that horror flick character for San Diego State. You keep thinking you killed it off. You didn’t.
It probably would have saved everybody a whole lot of time, and whistles, had the two basketball teams just walked on the floor at Thomas & Mack Center on Friday night for their Mountain West Tournament semifinal and played the final few minutes instead of the first 30. That’s when these games always seem to be decided, and that’s when this one was, too.
Same script.
Same result.
This one didn’t go down to the wire like the two at Viejas Arena in January, but the No. 19 Aztecs had to hold off one Wolf Pack surge after another to secure a 77-70 victory.
It was their third against Nevada this season and their 13th straight since being swept at Utah State in mid-January. More importantly, it gives them a chance to do one of the few things they haven’t done well in their remarkable ascension among college basketball’s top programs.
They advance to the tournament final Saturday afternoon (3 p.m., CBS) against either Colorado State or Utah State, which met in the late semifinal. It’s the eighth time in the last decade that the Aztecs have reached the final; they’ve won only one of the previous seven.
But you can’t fix the problem if you don’t get there, and the Aztecs have again.
“I’d love to get there, first and foremost,” coach Brian Dutcher said earlier in the week. “If we win two games, then I’ll revisit what I need to do to get the team better prepared to win a championship.”
Nevada decided not to borrow Wyoming’s game plan from the quarterfinals, when the Cowboys walked the ball up the floor and stood for the first 15 to 20 seconds of the shot clock to reduce possessions and “shorten” the game.
And the Aztecs looked like wild stallions let out of the corral, galloping down the floor at every opportunity. Their first two baskets came on transition 3s by Jordan Schakel, which was more transition points than they had in 40 minutes against the Cowboys. As soon as they grabbed a rebound or secured a steal, you could hear Dutcher in empty Thomas & Mack Center screaming, “Go, go, go.”
Matt Mitchell finished with 24 points and eight rebounds after missing six of his first seven shots, giving him 64 in three games against Nevada this season.
But it wasn’t just him. Schakel had 15 points and nine rebounds, missing his first career double-double by a single rebound for the second time in the last three games in this arena. Trey Pulliam had 13 points, seven coming in a key second-half stretch with the game in the balance. Freshman Lamont Butler (10 points) made it four Aztecs in double figures, and Terrell Gomez came a point from making it five.
SDSU (22-4) shot 54.5% and made nine 3s while holding the Wolf Pack (16-10) to 35.8 percent and only five 3s.
Playing college basketball games on back-to-back days, particularly between teams that had to work hard and expend energy to win the day before, can be an ugly affair. Or put it this way: Barely five minutes into Friday night’s game, SDSU already had seven fouls. And Nevada had one basket … and eight turnovers.
It didn’t get much more aesthetically pleasing from there, with any rhythm interrupted by whistles. There were 52 combined fouls in the game and 66 total free throws.
Nevada was already in the bonus with just 4:48 gone and used it to shoot 19 first-half free throws, making 16. Good thing, too, because it made only seven baskets and all-conference guard Grant Sherfield had none.
Like they did so effectively in the regular-season meetings with the Wolf Pack, the Aztecs switched all ball screens knowing their bigs were quick enough to stay in front of Sherfield on the perimeter and long enough to deter his step-back jumpers.
The tweak from Nevada coach Steve Alford was to find the post matched against a guard by lobbing over the top. So Sherfield was 0 of 6 at the half, and 7-foot Warren Washington had 12 points from a combination of dunks and free throws.
Sherfield finally made a basket four minutes into the second half and finished with 25 points. But the Aztecs solved their issues inside with Washington, bringing a double-team from the blind side if a guard had switched onto him.
Seven times in the second half, the Aztecs took double-digit leads. Seven times, the Wolf Pack quickly trimmed it to single figures. It was a six-point game with a minute to go, but free throws by Adam Seiko and Mitchell never let Nevada get any closer.
