Aztecs Have Both Ups and Downs, but Finish Down

The season is young, most of the players are new, so Coach Jim Brandenburg figures his San Diego State basketball team will have games like this.

Games when the bad is just a little better than the good, and that just isn’t good enough to win.

That is what happened Saturday night as the Aztecs lost at Arizona State, 77-72, in front of 3,637 at the University Activity Center.

It was a game in which the Aztecs looked unstoppable on one possession and were unable to get the ball beyond halfcourt the next.

They made a season-high 23 turnovers, leading to 32 Arizona State points. That and a 17-3 scoring edge at the free-throw line made up for the Aztecs’ big edges in rebounding (43-33), field goals (33-27) and shooting percentage (50%-40%).

Mitch McMullen led four Aztecs in double figures with 16 points. Senior forward Trent Edwards scored 19 and junior guard Tarence Wheeler 18 for Arizona State (5-1).

“If we had passed the ball from side to side and executed our offense,” Brandenburg said, “we would have torn them up.”

On several occasions, that appeared to be just what the Aztecs (3-2) were about to do. But each time, they let the Sun Devils back in the game, the last time for good.

SDSU took a six-point lead (22-16) midway through the first half, but were then outscored, 9-2, to lose the lead for the first time since the opening 2 minutes.

That set the tone for the rest of a see-saw first-half in which there were 11 lead changes and 4 ties, the last change coming on Tony Ross’ 3-pointer with 3 seconds left to make it 43-41.

The Aztecs threatened to break the game open at the start of the second half, streaking to a 49-41 lead in the first 1:25 but again returned to their sloppy ways. The Sun Devils went on a 19-6 run to take a 60-55 lead with 10:24 to play. Nine of those points came of SDSU turnovers.

“Our press kept us in the game,” Arizona State Coach Steve Patterson said. “We thought it could be effective.”

The Aztecs never regained the lead after that last Arizona State rally but did score three baskets within a minute to close to 68-66 with 4:42 left.

But chances were lost on a missed 17-footer by guard Bryan Williams and two turnovers by swingman Michael Best--once when he stepped on the sideline while trying to fast break and another when he was tied up on an inbounds play.

Best’s play seemed to illustrate the Aztecs’ up-and-down performance. He scored 11 points, had a game-high 7 assists and made 2 steals. But he also committed 5 turnovers and 4 personal fouls, bringing his total to 23 fouls in 5 games.

One 25-second piece of play late in the first half might have best showed the kind of night it was for Best and the Aztecs.

First came the good: He swished a three-point goal, then made a steal. Next came the bad: He turned the ball back over on bad pass and committed a blocking foul in failed attempt to stop a fastbreak basket, allowing junior forward Alex Austin to complete a three-point play.

“We are still learning to play as a team,” said Best, a newly eligible junior transfer from Clemson. “We’re going to be a better team than this when we feel comfortable with each other.”

The loss was SDSU’s second in a row after a 3-0 start and came after an 11-day layoff following a 15-point loss at Texas Tech. The victory was Arizona State’s fifth in a row after an season-opening loss at Alabama and came after an eight-day layoff that followed a six-point victory at Texas Tech.

The game was the Aztecs’ last on the road until a Jan. 12 game at Brigham Young. They play their next seven games at the San Diego Sports Arena, starting Tuesday against Hardin-Simmons in the first round of the McDonald’s tournament.

The homestand could give the Aztecs a chance to settle down and better familiarize themselves with each other. Seven players are new to this season’s team.

“We’ve got so many scorers that every time down, someone sees a shot he thinks he can make and takes it,” said Sam Johnson, senior forward. “We are not making that extra pass yet.”