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Hacksaw’s Great Sports Weekend Podcast
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‘AZTECS BASKETBALL DERAILED”
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The San Diego State basketball season roller coast ride ended with a bad crash in the Mountain West Conference tourney.

The glaring issues we saw in spurts during the second half of the season, all came back, in a bad first round, end of season defeat, to a mid level Boise State team.

Yes SDSU did not have their outstanding big man Magoon Gwath.  But they had everyone else, everyone else let them down, taken out by a really feisty performance by an equally up and down Broncos team.

End score was an ugly (62-52) setback, ugly because SDSU had an 11-point lead late in the first half.  SDSU never got back into it, and it got worse as the second half wore on.

Your hope was State could beat Boise a 3rd time.  But Coach Brian Dutcher ran out of ideas, ran out of players, and the players he needed the most to stay alive the tourney, ran out of gas in an ugly peformance.

Pick any number, and we should have seen this coming, not just Thursday afternoon, but before that.

Losing an 18-point lead to Utah State
Needing a 20-0 spurt to come back and win a game.
Ditto when they rallied with 17-0 and 18-0 spurts.
The near disaster loss to 4-win Air Force.

I found no consistency in the Aztecs season, a by product of being so young.  The injury complicated it obviously.

But on this given day, Boise played out of its mind. hitting 11-3s.  They outboarded SDSU (40-28).

Coach Leon Rice busted thru pick and rolls by jumping out with two defenders on the guy with the ball.

The Broncos prevented State from scoring a basket on the final 15-possessions, that covered (9:11).  They defended SDSU on 4-straight baseline drives in the final 2-minutes without allowing a score.

They ripped off a (13-3) scoring burst at the end.

State fell apart, missing 5-free throws in the final 3-minutes.

Nick Boyd went for 20-points but Miles Byrd and BJ Davis went a combined (3-for-17) from the floor, and Miles Heide disappeared on a night they needed his big man body.

it was a bad night, in a transition season.

Maybe SDSU’s legacy will buy them some help as a last team in on Selection Sunday.  They will be an NIT team and getting the chance to play in Madison Square Garden in the finals could be fun.   If not, you chalk it up to a tough finish for a very young team.

You would hope Gwath and Bird make the right decision, another year under Dutcher, and give up on this idea of the NBA draft.  Get ready to complete unfinished business and the likelihood of being a high selection come the 2026-draft.

It was like a Comet.  Streaking thru the basketball sky, but flaming out at the end.   But good kids, great coach, astounding Aztecs legacy.  It will continue.

It feels empty, but the sun comes up every morning, and more players are coming.  The next go-round of Aztecs basketball will be better.
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