Aztecs Nearly Fall Apart, But Beat Baylor : College basketball: 24-point lead cut to one before San Diego State wakes up.

Baylor came into Thursday night’s game against San Diego State with an impressive 6-1 record and a rather daunting statistic: Of its six victories, five came by an average margin of 32.6 points.

Baylor, however, proved to be less than advertised. The Bears left the Sports Arena somewhat humbled, having been beaten by the Aztecs, 84-70.

It was the fifth victory for the Aztecs in their past six games and gives them a 5-4 record as they head into Saturday night’s game at UCLA.

They might bring some momentum into that one, or at least some added confidence if they consider they managed a 14-point victory Thursday night in front of 2,025 despite going scoreless for six minutes and 22 seconds, a span that began with three minutes left in the opening half.

“I think there are a couple of guys on this team who would like to sneak into the TV room early (today) and erase six minutes of game tape,” Aztec coach Jim Brandenburg said. “We played six minutes of billiards ball there, but, hey, that’s a 6-1 (now 6-2) basketball team, and they’re pretty good.”

With just over three minutes remaining in the half, SDSU’s Ray Barefield hit two free throws to give the Aztecs a 38-14 lead.

That’s a 24-point safety zone of which, over the next six minutes, the Aztecs needed 23.

Feeling comfortable with his team’s lead, Brandenburg decided to give three starters--guard Arthur Massey, center Marty Dow and forward Joe McNaull--a rest after Barefield’s free throws.

An unfortunate ploy because the teammates those three left behind on the floor took a nap.

“I broke our momentum at that point,” Brandenburg said, “by putting in a bunch of guys who were cold. When you make changes like that, either of two things can happen. Either they’ll hit the deck running and keep up the momentum, or they’ll hit it cold and break the momentum.”

The latter occured and the Aztecs didn’t score again in the half.

So instead of going into the locker room with a comfortable buffer, the Aztecs went in with a precarious 10-point lead, 38-28.

A big disappointment, considering the way Baylor was operating its man defense. Only the Servomation employees manning the hot dogs were less attentive.

The Aztecs were able to go up by 24 points with three minutes left in in the half largely because Baylor let them.

San Diego State had no trouble finding passing lanes to Dow underneath the basket. So they used them. Dow finished the half with 10 points, all from down low.

“The middle was open a lot in the first half,” Dow said. “And our perimeter guys did a great job passing the ball to me so I could just take it right to the hole.”

Freshman Chris McKinney, meanwhile, was opening up from the outside. He hit three jumpers of 15 feet or more and finished the half with nine points.

Arthur Massey added five points, but was more effective passing the ball. He had six assists in the half.

All that came in the first 17 minutes. The next three belonged to Baylor.

More specifically, they belonged to David Wesley, who scored 10 of Baylor’s 14 points in that period and got an assist when he passed to center Alex Halcombe for a dunk that made it 38-23 with 66 seconds left in the half.

No problem, Brandenburg thought. The Aztecs would just have to open the second half with a big run.

“I thought we could come out and reestablish ourselves,” Brandenburg said. “But they open by hitting a three and it’s a seven-point lead instead of 10.

It was Wesley who hit the three-pointer to close Baylor within seven.

But the Bears did not stop there. In fact, they pulled within one, 40-39, four minutes into the half when Anthony Lewis got free underneath and put an easy one through the hoop.

But that basket was also a wake-up call for the Aztecs, who went on to score the next nine points.

“Everybody responded to our little lapse really well,” Dow said. “They got within one and we came back and went on a big run.”

Massey started the streak by hitting two free throws. On the night, he made 12 and improved his streak to 26 in a row. Only Joe Kramer has a longer free-throw streak in Aztec history. He hit 33 consecutively in 1977-78.

Dow added 11 second-half points and finished with 21, most for the Aztecs. Massey finished with 19 points and nine assists and McKinney added 15 points.

Wesley led all scorers with 22.