They Have Aztecs’ Number : Colorado State Routs San Diego State for Second Time in a Row

Not Brigham Young, not Texas El Paso, not New Mexico, not even Wyoming has handled San Diego State this season any more easily than Colorado State has.

The Rams simply have taken the Aztecs apart twice. The latest time was Thursday night as Colorado State won, 76-59, in front of 2,521 at the San Diego Sports Arena.

The defeat, combined with a 24-point Colorado State victory at Fort Collins Jan. 22, gave the Rams a sweep of the regular-season series and the largest combined margin of victory by any of the Aztecs’ WAC opponents.

“They just frustrate us,” said Bryan Williams, SDSU point guard. “They execute perfectly. They don’t make mistakes. If we make one mistake, they’re right there to take advantage of it. You can’t have a bad game against them or else it’s all over.”

The tone was set early when the Rams opened in a trapping 1-3-1 zone defense that throughly confused the Aztecs.

“It wasn’t that they were getting turnovers,” Williams said. “But we couldn’t get our players in the right position. We’d catch the ball, and we’d be three feet from the three-point line.”

The result was a game that quickly became a rout. The Rams went on to lead by as much 27 points midway through the second half.

“They couldn’t handle our trap,” said Pat Durham, a Colorado State forward who scored 22 points to share game scoring honors with teammate David Turcotte. “You could see how confused and frustrated they became. We just wanted to do something different to throw them off.”

It also didn’t hurt that the Rams were playing nearly perfectly at their end as well. They shot 62.2% (28 of 45), including 75.0% (15 of 20) in the second half.

Turcotte was 8 of 12, including 4 of 5 from three-point range.

Williams had 14 points to lead SDSU, but 10 came in the final 11:26 when the Aztecs had fallen hopelessly behind.

The loss was a crucial one for SDSU, which still has hopes of moving up the conference standings and improving its seeding for the WAC tournament beginning Wednesday at Brigham Young.

SDSU (11-16, 4-11 in conference) must beat Air Force Saturday in its regular season finale at the Sports Arena to avoid falling into eighth place.

If the Aztecs finish eighth, they will have to play last-place Hawaii Wednesday in a preliminary game at Provo, Utah. The winner will then meet top-seeded Brigham Young on its home court in the quarterfinals Thursday night.

The Aztecs can still earn the seventh seed and the right to play second-seeded Wyoming in the quarterfinals by beating Air Force.

Colorado State (16-11, 7-8) clinched the sixth seed with its victory and will play the third-seeded team Thursday afternoon.

“We knew we had a lot at stake,” said Boyd Grant, Colorado State coach, “and we came out and played like we did.”

Colorado State completely upset the Aztecs’ offensive rhythm in the first half, switching from its zone trap, to man-to-man and to a 2-3 zone.

“They frustrated us offensively,” said Jim Brandenburg, SDSU coach. “And when we get frustrated offensively, it just throws our defense off.”

SDSU last led, 8-6, before the Rams scored seven points in a row to make it 13-8 with 14:46 left in the first half. The Aztecs rallied for the next five points to draw to within 15-13 two minutes later, but Colorado State responded by scoring another seven in a row to lead 22-13 at 9:06. SDSU never made another strong run.

The best SDSU action of half might have come from guard Tony Ross, who fouled Durham, then momentarily squared off with the Colorado State forward. Ross, who did not start because he has been slowed by the flu this week, exchanged shoves with Durham, who at 6-feet 8-inches is five inches taller, but nothing more came of the exchange.

The tussle seemed to inspire Durham, who scored 10 of Rams’ last 14 points of the half. Ross, the Aztecs’ leading scorer at 15.9 points per game, scored his only points on a three-point basket with 36 seconds left in the half.

The loss left the Aztecs searching to regroup for their important game against Air Force Saturday.

“We’ve got to just forget about this one,” said Rodney Hawkins, SDSU forward. “Our problem in this game was that we worried about everything that went wrong. We do that, we forget about what we’re really supposed to be doing. We can’t have that against Air Force.”

Aztec Notes

San Diego State Coach Jim Brandenburg is now 0-3 in major-college games against Colorado State Coach Boyd Grant, his former teammate and roommate at CSU in the mid-1950s . . . Mark Pollard, a 6-10 freshman center, scored his first basket of the season on a layup off a rebound with 18 seconds left.