3 thoughts: SDSU 71, Fresno State 52 … Magoon’s revival, opportunity lost and Boise State’s meltdown

Three thoughts on San Diego State’s 71-52 win against Fresno State on Saturday night at Viejas Arena:

1. Back on track

Rock bottom for Magoon Gwath came two weeks ago.

He had a frustrating night at San Jose State, getting stripped of the ball several times, getting a technical foul when he tossed the ball at an opposing player, getting benched for the final 11 minutes of a close game.

Then he did something — showed up late for practice or a meeting, or skipped a weightlifting session — that compelled coach Brian Dutcher to remove him from the starting lineup for two games.

“Yeah, I didn’t do what I was supposed to do,” Gwath said Saturday night, without elaborating. “I can’t argue with them taking me out of the starting lineup. It’s a culture that we all have responsibilities we must do, and if we don’t do it, then stuff like that can happen.

“(But) it helped me lock in, having a couple slip-ups. It put me back on track.”

We saw flashes Tuesday night at Nevada, subbing out of the game late and skipping down the bench to high-five teammates.

We saw even more Saturday in Viejas Arena, returning to the starting lineup and finishing with 18 points (on 8-of-12 shooting), eight rebounds, two blocks and a steal from diving for a loose ball.

“He’s getting better, and I can tell,” Dutcher said of his 7-foot forward who sat out six months after April knee surgery. “There was a stretch where he looked pretty sad out there and sad in practice, and he has to fight through that. My job as a coach is not Xs and Os. It’s helping these guys fight through tough stretches in their lives, whether it’s on the court or off the court.

“Because he feels better, he’s mentally better. He’s not sore and beat up before the game even starts, where he’s in pain to run. Just getting his body back in game shape, he’s feeling better. He’s getting treatment every day, he’s doing rehab every day, and his body is coming around.”

He’s not all the way back, not to the level he and everyone else expects. But he took some positive steps forward.

“It’s a long season, with a lot of games,” said Gwath, who didn’t really get going last year until January and quickly blossomed into the Mountain West freshman and defensive player of the year. “You can’t underperform for every game you play. There are going to be good games, there are going to be bad games. You’ve just got to weather the storm.

“I tried to go out there and have fun, tried not to press my game too hard and think too much about it. Just go out there and play, and what happens, happens.”

2. Missed opportunity

It’s hard to call a 19-point win a missed opportunity, but in the convoluted world of college basketball, it’s hard to look at it any other way.

“We could have led by 30 at halftime,” Dutcher lamented.

They would lead by 29 with 13 minutes to go, then surrender a 21-7 run that ultimately brought ninth-place Fresno State within 13 points. They spurted at the end to push the margin to 19 … yet still dropped three spots in both the Kenpom and NET metrics.

The Aztecs finally have started winning — eight of their last nine, with the lone loss against No. 1-ranked Arizona — and that usually corresponds with a rise in your metrics. Except it hasn’t in Kenpom, starting December at 51 and sitting at 53 now.

They also still don’t have a Quad 1 victory and have only three opportunities left: at New Mexico and both games against Utah State.

They briefly had one after Tuesday’s 73-68 win at Nevada, because a road opponent in the top 75 of the NET qualifies for Quad 1 and the Wolf Pack were 67. But the Wolf Pack dropped to 75 with the loss against SDSU, then slipped to 79 the next day when Boise State — their best win of the season — got drilled at home by Grand Canyon and fell as well, dragging down all their opponents with them. Nevada, then, became a Quad 2 win.

SDSU’s current resume: zero wins in Quad 1, one in Quad 2 and 10 in Quad 3 or below, plus metrics in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Not nearly good enough for NCAA Tournament at-large consideration.

Which brings us back to Saturday night. When you’re up 29 early in the second half on a team missing its starting point guard and struggling to even get shots offs, you need to capitalize.

New Mexico has. Its four conference wins against bottom-tier teams have come by 33, 20, 10 and 42 points, bumping them from 78 to 50 in Kenpom and to 44 in the NET.

The Lobos were up 28 with 13 minutes to go at Air Force on Saturday … then poured it on and won 91-49.

“I don’t worry about that as much,” Dutcher said. “I’m more frustrated because we didn’t play up to our potential than the point spread. If we play to our potential and it’s a two-point win, I’m happy with it if I feel we’re playing good basketball.

“We had an eight-minute stretch where I didn’t like our concentration. That’s the only thing I can control.”

The Aztecs, though, are running out of blowout opportunities. Of games against the bottom three teams — Fresno State, San Jose State and Air Force — they only have a Feb. 7 game at Air Force, where they needed a buzzer-beater in overtime to win last year. And remember, they skip San Jose State at home and Fresno State away in the Mountain West’s unbalanced schedule.

3. The hangover

A week earlier at Viejas Arena, Boise State had a free-throw line jumper to win it at the regulation buzzer roll around the rim and spin out, then blew a six-point lead with 12 seconds left in overtime, then lost in triple OT partly from a 3 from Aztecs forward Jeremiah Oden when, video replay later showed, he should have fouled out in the second OT.

It might have saved SDSU’s season.

It might have ruined Boise State’s.

The Broncos limped home for a pair of games at ExtraMile Arena and lost both. Lost both badly, 75-58 against Grand Canyon on Wednesday and 93-68 against Utah State on Saturday.

The 93 points were the most allowed at home in coach Leon Rice’s 16-year tenure there. The 25-point loss was the most lopsided at home in a quarter century.

Even worse, a hundred or so Utah State students were in attendance and chanted “Leon hates you” at Broncos guard Dylan Andrews.

That’s because Rice threw the UCLA transfer guard under the proverbial bus after the Grand Canyon loss, saying in the postgame news conference: “Not to beat a dead horse, but we could shoot half-courters and shoot the same percentage of what he’s shot recently.”

Rice also said this about the sparse crowd for the 9 p.m. weekday tip:

“That might have been the worst crowd we’ve had. I feel grateful for the ones who came, because that was the emptiest this building’s been. … That was a neutral-court game almost for Grand Canyon. … It was just a dead atmosphere, and we played right into it.”

On Friday, the veteran coach took umbrage with a headline on the Bronco Nation News website saying “Rice blasts players, fans,” launching into a nine-minute tirade with local media.

“It’s malpractice, it’s egregious, it’s taken out of context,” a visibly upset Rice said. “For someone to say I blasted our fans and use it as clickbait — call it what it is — that just makes me mad. That makes me mad.

“I’m a part of this community, I’ve lived here 16 years, I’ve raised my family here. These people mean everything to our program.”

The next night, his team lost by 25 and dropped to 1-4 in the Mountain West, tied with Fresno State for ninth place.

“Oh boy,” Rice said after bunkering in the locker room for a half hour. “First of all, I’ve got great guys. They’re good kids, they’re nice, they’re fun to be around, and they were a good basketball team three weeks ago. We can’t lose sight of that. But it’s not right, right now.

“It’s crazy, it’s a crazy deal. We were a good basketball team, but we’re not that right now. It’s amazing how quick this flipped.”