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Aztecs Win the Revival With USD

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

Those elements so frequently lacking in San Diego college basketball these past few years made a long-awaited reappearance Wednesday night.

They took the form of an actively contested intracity rivalry between San Diego State and the University of San Diego. This one was won by the Aztecs, 85-75, in a nonconference game the teams fought over down to the final few minutes.

It was a fitting way to welcome back a series that was temporarily suspended last season when the teams could not agree on a date. The absence did make the teams grow fonder.

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“This is a rivalry game, no question,” said Michael Best, SDSU senior guard. “They (some USD players) came into our gym over the summer to play and were talking it up. We all wanted to win this one.”

Best had much to do with the victory. He recovered from an erratic first half in which he scored seven points and made one of five three-point shots to finish with 18 as he was three-of-six on three-pointers in the second half. He also added five assists and four steals.

He was one of four Aztecs in double figures as center Marty Dow and forward Shawn Jamison tied for game honors with 19 points, and reserve guard Arthur Massey added 11.

The Toreros answered with five players in double figures, led by forwards Kelvin Woods with 18 and John Jerome with 16 points and a game-high 12 rebounds. But that was not enough on a night when the Aztecs (4-2) topped their best offensive performance by 18 points and played their best floor game, committing only seven turnovers and giving the Toreros few easy baskets.

USD, for its part, made 14 turnovers and several came at the most crucial times. One in particular--a ball knocked away by Best that sent Massey off on a breakaway layup--gave the Aztecs a 78-70 lead with 4:20 to play from which the Toreros (2-4) never recovered.

“We made a bunch of turnovers and missed some front ends of one-and-ones,” USD Coach Hank Egan said. “Now we’re trying to play catch-up, and we don’t do that very well.”

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The loss was USD’s third in a row, and the victory was the Aztecs’ fourth consecutive, their longest winning streak since they won five in a row late in the 1984-85 season. The SDSU victory also ended a three-game USD winning streak in the series that began in 1962-63 and now stands, 16-8, in favor of SDSU.

“It’s great when we win, and I don’t think losing is great,” Egan said. “But it’s a great basketball rivalry. For the fans that were here, that was a pretty good basketball game.”

The proximity of the two schools, both holding high ground above I-8, added a bit of pregame tension. And while the crowd of 3,535 at the San Diego Sports Arena was far from the capacity of 13,741, it was the Aztecs’ largest and nosiest in three home games.

Although there were more than a fair share of USD supporters in the crowd, most had come to see the Aztecs put an end to a three-game slide against the Toreros in which they were outscored by an average of 18.7 points.

The game was in doubt down to the final four minutes when the Aztecs finally pulled away.

The Aztecs had appeared in control midway through the second half when they went on an 8-2 run to turn a 58-56 advantage into a 66-58 lead with 9:14 to play and led, 73-64, with 6:51 left. But the Toreros came back to make one last run, scoring six in a row to draw to within, 73-70, with 5:04 remaining.

But SDSU answered with a seven-point run to take what then was their biggest lead at 80-70 with 3:34 left and USD never got closer than eight points the rest of the way.

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It was a matchup of old coaching rivals as Egan and SDSU’s Jim Brandenburg renewed a matchup that began in the Western Athletic Conference in 1978-79 when Egan was at Air Force and Brandenburg at Wyoming.

This is a game in which the strategic jostling began with the opening tip as Egan made two changes in his regular starting lineup. He benched sophomore guard Wayman Strickland for the first time and gave Pat Holbert, a junior transfer from Mesa (Ariz.) Community college his first start at point guard. And he gave 6-foot-9 junior Dondi Bell only his second start at center as he moved Jerome, a 6-8 senior, to power forward and put 6-4 junior Anthony Thomas on the bench.

The move was designed to give the Toreros more height against an Aztec front line that included 7-1 Dow and 6-8 Jamison.

The game was close from the start as there were six lead changes and five ties in the first half as neither team led by more than six.

The Toreros took their biggest lead at 13-10 with 13:34 to play in the first half but the Aztecs scored 15 of the next 21 points to take their biggest lead at 25-19 at 9:51.

USD scored six in a row in the next 1:13 to tie the game at 25-25. But could regain the lead only once briefly the rest of the half at 35-34 on Jerome’s nine-footer with 3:49 left.

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Notes

San Diego State concludes a stretch of four games at the San Diego Sports Arena at 7:35 Saturday night against USC. The game will be carried live on Prime Ticket. The Aztecs then will be off for a week before playing at UC Irvine Dec. 16. . . . SDSU Coach Jim Brandenburg has said he will red-shirt junior forward Nelson Stewart, a community college transfer from the College of Eastern Utah. Stewart played a total of 13 minutes in the Aztecs’ first three games but did not score and had three rebounds.

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