San Diego State, UNLV in Final

Al Faux scored 20 points and made a 15-foot jumper with 19 seconds remaining that lifted San Diego State to a 70-69 victory over Wyoming in the Mountain West Conference tournament semifinals Friday at Las Vegas.

San Diego State (20-11) advanced to only its third Division I conference championship game and first since the 1985 Western Athletic Conference tournament. Tonight, the Aztecs play Nevada Las Vegas (20-9)--a 76-70 winner over Utah (21-8) in the other semifinal. The winner gets the conference’s automatic NCAA bid. Wyoming (21-8) and Utah are still in contention for at-large bids.

Marcus Bailey missed a jumper with four seconds left for regular-season Mountain West champion Wyoming, and Aerick Sanders grabbed the rebound for San Diego State and was fouled with 1.3 seconds left. He missed both free throws, but Wyoming couldn’t get off another shot.

Bailey finished with a season-high 31 points, making nine of 16 shots--including all four of his three-point attempts.

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In a late Thursday night Mountain West quarterfinal game, Lou Kelly scored six of his career-high 35 points in the second overtime to lead Nevada Las Vegas to a 120-117 victory over New Mexico.

Kelly’s dunk with 56 seconds left put UNLV up 115-109, but

Tim Lightfoot’s three-point basket with four seconds left pulled New Mexico (16-13) within 118-117. Kelly was fouled and made a free throw, and Cody Payne missed a wild shot from half-court as the buzzer sounded.

Ruben Douglas scored 32 points and Patrick Dennehy had a career-high 24 points and 13 rebounds for New Mexico, which missed a chance to win at the end of regulation and forced the second overtime on Senque Carey’s buzzer-beating reverse layup.

Douglas made a three-point shot with 14 seconds left in regulation to put New Mexico up 96-95, but UNLV’s Marcus Banks was fouled driving to the basket and made one of two free throws with eight seconds left. Douglas then bobbled the ball going up for a three-point shot as time ran out.