Aztec Update : San Diego State’s Record Something to Brag About

Who has the best record of any Division 1 college basketball team in Southern California?

No, it’s not USC or UCLA or Cal State Long Beach or UC Irvine. Those schools aren’t even close.

It’s San Diego State at 10-2.

The team with the next best record in Southern California is the University of San Diego at 9-4.

If the caliber of competition is taken into consideration, SDSU and USD probably wouldn’t be leading the pack. But 10-2 is 10-2.

After sweeping road games against Wyoming on Thursday night and Air Force on Saturday night, the Aztecs are 6-0 on the road, and are tied for first place in the Western Athletic Conference with Colorado State. SDSU and Colorado State are 2-0. Texas-El Paso, New Mexico, Wyoming and BYU are 1-1, and Hawaii and Air Force are 0-2.

On Thursday night, the Aztecs were the only one of four visiting WAC team to win. On Friday night, Colorado State beat Air Force at home. Three visiting teams won on Saturday night. The Aztecs beat Air Force, UTEP won at Utah, and New Mexico won at BYU.

Having already won twice as many games on the road as they did last year, the Aztecs head home to face Utah on Thursday night and BYU on Saturday night. Both games start at 7:30 at the San Diego Sports Arena.

What would a trip be without an unexpected adventure?

What promised to be a cold and tiring 3 1/2-hour bus ride from Laramie, Wyo. to Colorado Springs, Colo. turned into a five-hour, middle-of-the-night ordeal for the Aztecs.

Shortly after defeating Wyoming, the Aztecs boarded a bus at about 10 p.m. Thursday. The vehicle got a flat tire 20 miles outside of Colorado Springs, and the team didn’t get to the hotel there until 3:15 a.m. Friday.

Quotebook: One Laramie resident proclaimed there are four seasons in Wyoming: “Early winter, winter, late winter and next winter.”

Talk about getting orders from people in high places.

Pentagon officials have ordered the Air Force Academy, Naval Academy and West Point to play any basketball games held Monday through Thursday at 4 p.m. instead of the customary 7:30 p.m.

The grade-point average of students at those institutions has dropped, and that concerned Pentagon officials. So it was decided that students would be required to study after 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday.

The basketball teams at the schools still are allowed to play night games on Fridays and weekends.

The first priority for a center at Air Force is to be able to fit into an aircraft. If he can also pick quarters off the top of the backboard, that’s a bonus.

Tim Lewis, the Falcons’ starting center, is 6-7. The rest of the starting lineup is 6-4, 6-3, 6-2, and 6-1.

The Air Force Academy does not have a maximum height limitation, but very few players taller than 6-8 are able to fit into an aircraft.

Since most students attend Air Force with the intention of becoming pilots or at least learning how to fly, the basketball team rarely has a player taller than 6-8.

“They recruited me in high school,” 6-10 Aztec center Leonard Allen said. “I was 6-8 at the time.”

There was a time in his life when Allen actually considered becoming an astronaut. Now, he is majoring in industrial arts, with an emphasis in electronics.

For years, the Air Force basketball team was a slowdown, defensive-oriented team that rarely gave up more than 60 or 70 points a game.

On Saturday night, the Aztecs beat Reggie Minton’s running Falcons, 88-73. The last time the Falcons gave up more than 88 points was in a 89-76 loss at New Mexico on Jan. 17, 1983. However, the last time the Falcons gave up more than 88 points at home was in a 94-89 win over the University of Denver on Feb. 23, 1968.

So much for having four quality teams in the Cabrillo Classic.

After losing both games and finishing last in this year’s tournament, Aztec Coach Smokey Gaines said he wants to find a team the “Aztecs can beat up on in the first round. We’ve got to do a better job of scheduling.”

As of now, West Virginia, Fresno State and San Diego State are three of the teams in next year’s tournament. Can Brown, Long Island University or United States International University be far behind?