Aztecs Hope to Continue Their Revival

Celebration time was short for San Diego State’s basketball team.

Coach Jim Brandenburg’s Aztecs scarcely had a chance to savor Thursday night’s impressive 89-74 victory over Brigham Young before going back to work in preparation for today’s televised rematch (Ch. 51) against Utah at 2 p.m. at the San Diego Sports Arena.

Four weeks ago today, the Aztecs took an 80-61 beating in Salt Lake City. Whether they even the score today probably depends on which of their teams shows up. The team that avenged an earlier loss to BYU would have caused trouble for anybody in the Western Athletic Conference.

Utah is in sixth place, a step ahead of SDSU, after a 57-56 loss to Hawaii in Honolulu Thursday night. The Utes are 13-11, 4-5 in the WAC, the Aztecs 10-11 and 4-7.

Perhaps the brightest spot in SDSU’s revival against BYU was the 18-point, 10-rebound performance of center Mitch McMullen, who had been struggling for weeks because of a sore Achilles tendon.

“It was a big plus to get him going again,” Brandenburg said.

Another was the inspired play of Shawn Bell, whose 27-point effort included five crowd-pleasing slam dunks. Bell sank his first eight shots and 12 of 15 all told. Also, Michael Best had a great night with 18 points, a career-high 14 rebounds, six assists and four steals; Bryan Williams, returning after a one-game suspension for missing curfew, ran the offense masterfully, and Sam Johnson did a fine defensive job on high-scoring Michael Smith.