San Diego State 79, Colorado State 68 [63 possessions]
In the first game of the night, the Aztecs and Rams played to a near-draw in the first half with neither team able to stop the other. Both put up PPP numbers north of 1.25. The second half was more of the same for San Diego State. Actually, it was better as the first nine Aztec possessions finished with the following points: 3, 3, 2, 2, 0, 2, 3, 3, 3. While the Ram offense was more than acceptable in this game considering the quality of the opponent. But when your opponent is scoring over 1.5 points per possession two-thirds of the way into the game, your own scoring clearly isn’t the issue.
In other news, the Rams’ newly-minted national OR% leader Pierce Hornung, a role model to short guys everywhere, met his match in the Aztecs’ trio of Tim Shelton, DeShawn Stephens, and Garrett Green. Hornung was limited to four rebounds (two offensive) and didn’t record a steal. The Aztecs backcourt had its way with CSU defensively, and Hornung could do nothing to bail his team out.
New Mexico 72, UNLV 67 [66]
The Rebels scored the first 12 points and were up 17-4 less than four minutes into the game (on an eFG% of 107), but would struggle offensively the rest of the way. The Lobos took their first lead with 1:27 left in the first half. New Mexico head coach Steve Alford is clearly from the school of locking down the paint at the expense of giving up a few three-point attempts. The Rebels would only make 13 of 35 shots (37%) inside the arc, which explains how New Mexico’s defense could come up with a solid performance despite UNLV committing a season-low three turnovers and taking 22 free throw attempts.
It also helped that after making their first three three-point attempts, the Rebels would only make five of their final 24. And after scoring 12 points on its first four possessions, UNLV would close with 55 points on its last 62. If you’re going to score against the Lobos, chances are you’ll have to hit your open looks from long range. San Diego State did this in its previous win over New Mexico (9-of-20, 1.26 PPP) and didn’t in the home loss (3-for-14, 0.99 PPP). Yay for two-game samples.