#5 San Diego State Aztecs vs #6 New Mexico Lobos
LAS VEGAS—Mountain West tournament MVP Jaelen House scored 28 points, an ailing Jamal Mashburn Jr. added 21, and Co-MW Freshman of the year J.T. Toppin scored seven of the Lobos’s final 11 points as the New Mexico Lobos defeated the San Diego State Aztecs 68-61in the MW conference tournament final.
Toppin also grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds.
New Mexico head coach Richard Pitino devised a plan to challenge Jaedon LeDee from the opening tip by posting up Nelly Junior Joseph and adding a double team any time he touched the ball. LeDee wouldn’t pot the first FG until 4:09 of the first half.
It was a smart call by Pitino with both of his slippery guards, Jamal Mashburn Jr. and Donovan Dent, ailing with flu-like symptoms to conserve their energy in the early going.
Jamal Mashburn Jr. decided to get shots up while he had the energy, scoring 10 points in the early going and staking the Lobos to an 18-13 lead with 11:05 to play in the half.
Jaelen House then lit up the Aztecs on three consecutive possessions, canning triples from the same spot on the floor each time, with the Aztec defense inexplicably giving him the space to do so.
House’s 9-0 run capped a 14-2 bulge and gave New Mexico their largest lead of the half at 32-18 with 4:34 on the clock.
Aztec head coach Brian Dutcher was beside himself as he called timeout to get his guys refocused.
LeDee finally took the cap off the rim on the next possession and followed that up with a driving layup and an and-one conversion after drawing a second foul on Junior Joseph.
San Diego State recommitted to the defense their program is built on, coming six feet out beyond the arc to meet House and Mashburn with Darrion Trammel and Lamont Butler.
The adjustment forced House the Lobo guards further from the basket, out of shooting range, and to give up the ball.
The defensive commitment led to offense. A layup and plus-one, and a half-ending dunk from Jay Pal, pulled the Aztecs back within six at 36-30, headed to intermission.
The second half got underway with a New Mexico push, likely freshly loaded with IVs at halftime, given their fourth game in four days.
The Lobos would extend the lead to 41-30 just two minutes in on Mashburn’s third three-pointer of the game. The senior guard was gutting it out, adding a wonky back to his illness issue after a foul from SDSU’s Miles Byrd in which they both hit the floor hard and were writhing in discomfort.
But SDSU would fight back. A Butler three, a LeDee bucket, and five straight points from Reese Watters would bring the Aztecs their first game lead at 44-43 with 12:12 on the clock.
Each team took their shots over the next eight minutes of action, but both defenses dominated the play.
The foul count, however, was skyrocketing, and the game turned into a grinding free throw contest with SDSU’s LeDee 11-for-11, and UNM’s Mashburn 6-for-7 and House 5-for-5 on a charity stripe merry-go-round.
A pair of House Free throws knotted things at 59-59 with 4:28 left.
At that point Brian Dutcher had to like his chances. Trammell had steadily fed the ball into LeDee in the paint, and New Mexico’s primary defensive options, Joseph Junior and Toppin had picked up their fourth and third personals, respectively.
“Clearly they were going to LeDee every single time,” said Pitino. “We were having some issues with getting stops. He was getting fouled, which he does. He’s great at it. He was knocking down his free throws.”
Both teams would go scoreless in a frenetic next two minutes in which House and J.T. Toppin would come up with steals for the Lobos, only to be turned away by a Micah Parrish block and a House miss.
But New Mexico somehow found another gear on both ends of the floor to slow down the Aztecs. “We just had to go make winning plays, and we found a way to get a couple more winning plays down the stretch. Our defense and our rebounding grew this tournament, and we had no chance to win if we didn’t start getting scrappy like we did,” said Pitino.
The tie was broken by Toppin grabbing an offensive board and the put-back at 2:30 and a 61-59 lead.
Pitino ordered LeDee to double the rest of the way despite the fouls, and the remaining Aztecs failed to make a shot or draw a single foul.
San Diego State head coach Brian Dutcher lamented the missed opportunities, “We cut the margin to six, I think, at halftime today and built momentum and took a second-half lead.” Dutcher continued, “It went back and forth, a couple of lead changes, and unfortunately, we didn’t close the game out. We missed some open shots that if you are going to win a title, you have to make, and we didn’t make them.”
By the time LeDee finally got free for his final points on a dunk with 23 seconds left, the Lobos had pushed the lead to 67-59 by converting the Aztec misses on the pure adrenaline of achieving the near-impossible task of winning four games in four days in a must-win situation.
Pitino reflected on the feat, “Nobody has ever, I believe, won in this tournament four games in four nights like this, and we never looked fatigued. San Diego State is a program that we’ve got a lot of respect for. We knew we would have to raise our level of toughness, and we did it.”
