SDSU, Wyoming Meet at WAC Cellar Door : A Disappointing Season Will Get Worse for One of These Teams Tonight

How the mighty have fallen and the aspiring have stumbled.

That might be the kindest way to sum up tonight’s (6:30 PST) Western Athletic Conference basketball game between San Diego State and Wyoming at Wyoming’s Arena-Auditorium.

Another, less delicate, way would be to call it a matchup for last place, because despite these teams’ earlier aspirations, that is what this late-season game has become.

The loser will occupy sole possession of ninth place. The best the winner can hope to do is stave off for another game the likely possibility that it will end up playing in the preliminary game of WAC tournament, a lonely affair that matches the conference’s eighth- and ninth-place teams in an elimination game to find a quarterfinal opponent for the regular-season champion.

All of this is quite a comedown for Wyoming (11-14, 3-8 in WAC), which a year ago was a Top 20 team that played for the WAC tournament championship. And it sits no better with the Aztecs (10-13, 4-9), who, after winning their first two conference games, have lost nine of 11. One exception is a 69-61 home victory over Wyoming Jan. 30.

“We’re going to have to start regrouping pretty quick and get some momentum,” SDSU Coach Jim Brandenburg said. “I thought we had done a really nice job of getting some momentum last week against Brigham Young, and then we had another setback (home losses to Utah and Hawaii). We have got to find another impetus to get us some momentum and some confidence.”

Complicating the Aztecs’ task is a schedule that has them playing their final three conference games on the road, including a swing to New Mexico and Texas El Paso, the league’s top two teams. None of this is an inviting prospect for a team that has lost 23 of its past 24 conference games outside of San Diego.

The Aztecs are 0-5 on the road this season in the WAC and have lost seven road games in a row since an 83-58 victory at Baylor Nov. 29.

If there is any consolation for the Aztecs, it is that at least Wyoming has had its troubles at home. The Cowboys are 1-4 in conference home games, and the usually raucous Arena-Auditorium has been rather empty of late.

Average attendance has fallen to 5,904, a precipitous drop from last season’s record 13,165 and the smallest home average since the Cowboys moved into the building for the 1982-83 season.

“It is a rebuilding situation for them, and yet they are really a dangerous club,” Brandenburg said. “They have started to spread it out and really control games on the road. They have done an excellent job of controlling tempo. . . . The real question is whether they will try to spread it out at home because I’m not sure how well-accepted that ploy will be with crowd at home.”