Viejas Arena is hosting a concert with Duran Duran on Sunday night, and workers were scheduled to begin tear-down of the basketball court and set up of the stage Saturday between 9:30 and 10 p.m.
They had to wait.
San Diego State and Boise State tipped off at 7 p.m. and were still playing well after 10 in what became maybe the craziest, wildest, wackiest, nuttiest game in the arena’s 28-year history.
The Aztecs won 110-107, but not before … leading by 24 in the first half … blowing the entire thing … watching a Broncos shot roll around the rim and out at the regulation buzzer … getting a contested, tying 3 at the buzzer of the first OT to complete a six-point comeback inside 12 seconds to go … blowing a five-point lead in the second OT and going to a third … then watching a Broncos’ attempt at forcing a fourth OT bounce of the backboard and the rim.
BJ Davis, who was the hero, then goat, then hero again, corralled the rebound and raced to the other as time mercifully expired.
There were 23 ties or lead changes, 51 fouls, 63 free throws, and 151 shots in the 55-minute game.
Davis led the Aztecs with 22 points, but freshman Elzie Harrington had 20, Reese Dixon-Waters had 16, Miles Byrd had 13 and Pharaoh Compton had 11. Eight Aztecs had at least seven points.
The Aztecs outshot the visitors 53.4% to 42.3%, but the Broncos won the battle of the boards and were 27 to 31 from the line. Javan Buchanan, who began his career at the NAIA level, led all scorers with 29 points.
For a half Saturday night, the SDSU team you’ve seen for the first two months of the season suddenly, inexplicably, almost magically became the team you thought you’d see, then vanished as quickly as it appeared.
The Aztecs led 50-29 at halftime … and were tied 79-79 at the end of regulation … and quickly trailed by six in overtime.
Both teams, though, had opportunities to win it in regulation.
Davis had one-and-one free throws with 18 seconds left and the Aztecs up two. He missed the first, and the Broncos tied it at the other end. Davis’ attempt at a winner missed, sending Broncos guard Dylan Andrews on a furious race to the other end to beat the clock.
He pulled up at the free throw line … and his jumper rolled around and out as the buzzer sounded.
Boise State went ahead by six in OT as the Aztecs’ offense, so fluid and efficient in the first half, sputtered and stalled. The Aztecs twice had chances to cut it to two, but Byrd missed another front end of a one-and-one free throw and Miles Heide missed two.
They were still up six when Harrington made a 3 from the left side with 12 seconds left. The Broncos coughed up the inbounds pass into the backcourt against the press, and Davis calmly dribbled up and drained a contested 3 from deep at the buzzer.
Double OT.
There was little public indication the first half was coming, not after a four-loss nonconference schedule and a lethargic win at severely short-handed San Jose State four days earlier that was still a two-point game with five minutes to go. Behind closed doors, though, there were signs something might have clicked.
The team showed up for practice Thursday looking like a bunch of guys trying to fulfill New Year’s resolutions: be better teammates, buy into the coaching and game plans, shed the bad body language from the frustrations of reduced minutes from an 11-man rotation, start playing like they can.
And they did, using a 19-1 run midway through the first half to build a 24-point lead against the team that was picked third in the Mountain West preseason poll and had top 100 Kenpom wins against Wichita State, Butler, St. Mary’s and New Mexico.
The defense was on point, holding the Broncos (9-5, 1-2) without a basket for 8½ minutes – they missed 12 straight shots – and two of their first 16 behind the 3-point arc. One of the nation’s best rebounding teams didn’t have a second-chance point in the opening 20 minutes, either.
The offense was pretty good, too, scoring 50 points in the first half from nine different players on 65.5% shooting (5 of 9 on 3s).
One of the SDSU’s issues has been building rhythm in an 11-man rotation, and it was essentially trimmed to 9½ on Saturday, partly by circumstance and partly by design. Freshman forward Tae Simmons sat out with a leg injury (that is not believed to be serious). And coach Brian Dutcher played point guard Sean Newman Jr. only 3:45 in the first half, giving everyone else at least nine minutes.
Dutcher also tweaked the starting lineup, inserting senior forward Jeremiah Oden for Magoon Gwath. And the first sub off the bench was Pharaoh Compton, who has been trending up in recent weeks.
Boise State coach Leon Rice called one timeout to stem the tide, then another to argue first with official David Walker and then Rob Kueneman, who rewarded the effort with a technical foul after more than two minutes of increasing heated dialogue.
Dixon-Waters made both free throws, then Byrd drained a 3 on the ensuing possession to ignite the Viejas Arena crowd.
Then came a pair of Broncos turnovers that the Aztecs turned into a Byrd dunk and Compton floater, then a Dixon-Waters 3 – 42-18, SDSU.
But Boise State chipped away in the second half as the Aztecs’ offense went cold and the defense went wayward, forcing a timeout from Dutcher with the margin down to 12 with 11:58 left instead of waiting for the under-12-minute media timeout coming at the next stoppage.
And then another with 8:31 left and the lead down to, gulp, 67-62.
The Broncos tied it with four minutes to go, and it was a game from there.