PHOENIX —- The old Aztecs are back.
The team that plays stingy, suffocating, stifling defense.
The team that can’t rebound.
The team that just … can’t … make … a … shot.
The combination worked really well for 18 minutes Saturday night and reasonably well for 25, and then not so well for the final 15 as No. 1-ranked Arizona blew open a tight game to rout San Diego State 68-45 in the Naismith Hall of Fame Series at Phoenix’s Mortgage Matchup Center.
The Kenpom computer metric projected a 14-point Wildcats win. The Aztecs led by seven late in the first half, trailed by one early in the second half … and lost by 23.
Just as the final score in their last game – an 81-58 home win against Air Force on Wednesday – wasn’t indicative of how poorly they played in the opening 20 minutes, this didn’t reflect how well they did.
The result is that the Aztecs (6-4) will close the nonconference portion of their schedule without a marquee win and, barring something spectacular during the Mountain West regular season, will need to win the conference tournament in March to secure a berth in the NCAA Tournament for a sixth straight year.
it wasn’t all bad, though.
The prevailing positive is that the Aztecs played with No. 1 into the second half and would have pushed the 11-0 Wildcats even deeper into the game had an offense that has been so effective all season not gone Siberian frigid.
The Aztecs shot a miserable 27.6% in the first half, then 25% in the second.
The Aztecs were averaging 81.8 points per game. They didn’t crack 40 Saturday until inside five minutes to go, once again getting little from their preseason all-conference selections Miles Byrd, Reese Dixon-Waters and Magoon Gwath (who shot a combined 5 of 23) and a 1 of 12 night from leading scorer BJ Davis.
No one finished in double figures (Dixon-Waters led with eight points on 2 of 10 shooting). Arizona had five in double figures: Jaden Bradley and Anthony Dell’Orso with 11 and three others with 10.
The other positive, of course, was the defense emerging from its winter hibernation. The Wildcats were averaging 90 points and had scored less than 84 only once (and that was 69). Saturday, they shot a season-low 37.9% after entering the night seventh nationally at 52.7%.
But it doesn’t much matter how poorly you shoot if you merely go get the rebound, which the Wildcats did at will. They finished with a 52-28 margin on the boards, 20 coming on the offensive end that led to a 14-4 advantage in second-chance points.
Things were going well for the Aztecs deep into the first half, so well that at one point they were shooting 6 of 22 but leading the nation’s No. 1 team.
How’d they do that?
The Wildcats don’t rely on the 3-point shot, ranking in the 300s at 6.4 per game, and SDSU dared them to cast away behind the arc. And they missed their first nine before Dell’Orso finally made one with 30 seconds left.
The Aztecs compensated at the line, where they were 10 of 11 in the first half, including a combined 4 of 4 by Miles Heide and Pharaoh Compton (who both shot under 50% last season).
They also limited the Wildcats’ prolific transition offense to just three fast-break points and forced 10 turnovers in the opening 20 minutes.
The answer to your next question: Tyler Kumpf.
He’s the official who “whacked” Aztecs coach Brian Dutcher during Arizona’s run late in the first half while Wildcats guard Jaden Bradley was on the line. Dutcher doesn’t swear at officials and he wasn’t being particularly demonstrative, just arguing a non-call at the other end. He’s had only one technical foul in nine years as a head coach.
Who is Kumpf and why was he working a game with the No. 1 team in the country?
Good question. He has spent most of his career scuffling around the Missouri Valley, Horizon League and Conference USA. He’s currently No. 63 in Kenpom officials rankings, an indication he’s not regularly assigned to big games. He had worked exactly one SDSU game – in the opening round of the 2016 Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu, when Steve Fisher was head coach – in his 16-year career, meaning he had little familiarity with Dutcher’s affable personality or deep respect among coaches and officials alike.
The technical foul seemed to catch Kumpf’s two partners, Mike Littlewood and Steve Anderson, by surprise, but it resulted in two free throws and further whipped the partisan crowd into a frenzy.
The Wildcats rode that energy to an 8-0 run to turn a seven-point Aztecs lead into a 28-27 deficit at intermission.
The Wildcats kept going in the second half, finally pushing the margin into double digits with 12 minutes to go and never looked back.
Second half score: Wildcats 40, Aztecs 18.
Notable
The Aztecs fly home Sunday morning, then face Division III Whittier on Monday in a rare 1 p.m. weekday tip to accommodate the visitors and their holiday break … That will be their final nonconference game. The Mountain West season resumes Dec. 30 at San Jose State … Midway through the second half, Kumpf whistled a ball out of bounds for Arizona. Anderson overruled him and gave it to SDSU. Wildcats coach Tommy Lloyd challenged the call and won, improving to 3-0 on the season … Stanford beat Colorado 77-68 in the event’s first game, thanks to a school freshman record 32 points from Ebuka Okorie.