What San Diego State’s Brian Dutcher said after win vs. Fresno State
Taking on a scuffling Fresno State team on Tuesday night, San Diego State wasted no time putting their imprint on the game. The Aztecs (18-6, 11-4) forced Fresno State into 16 turnovers and shot 54 percent from the field, cruising to an 83-60 victory at Viejas Arena.
San Diego State outrebounded the Bulldogs by 14 and took advantage of fastbreak points (10) and second chance points (14), leading wire-to-wire against a Division 1 opponent for the first time since last season’s NCAA tournament game against Yale.
Senior point guard Nick Boyd continued his recent scoring run, finishing with 19 points and seven assists. Boyd reached 1,000 career points in the early going of the game and was an efficient 8-12 on the evening.
Freshman forward Magoon Gwath continued his breakout season with 14 points, six rebounds and three blocks while knocking down both of his three-point attempts.
The Aztecs have won seven of their past eight games heading into a two-game stretch that will see them take on Utah State and New Mexico, the top two teams in the league, over the next six days.
Here’s everything San Diego State head coach Brian Dutcher said after the victory.
Opening statement:
“It was a good team win tonight. I was nervous about this game. We were going to see a zone for the first time, over a long period of time, and they ran zone the whole first half and a lot of the second half. We had a game plan that I thought was really effective. It allowed us to get in the paint, get post touches, and dunks around the basket. Our zone offense was really good for not having played a lot of it over the course of the season. 20 team assists were really good, and we shot 54 percent from the field for the second game in a row, which is good. Usually, our defense carries us, which it did tonight, but our offense, when we play like that, we get the margins we had the last two games. I am proud of the guys. I watched Fresno on tape. I watched the Vegas game where they fought back and took a lead with one minute to go, and Vegas beat them at the very end. They had two shots to win the game. I knew they played hard, and I told that to coach Walberg before the game. For a team that has struggled and has the record they have, they fight every game, and that's a credit to their coaching staff. We knew it was going to be a hard game, but we got on them early, and their lack of depth probably caught up with them a little bit. We were deep and Kimo and Wayne came in and gave us good minutes. BJ was sick tonight. He tried to go, but he was unable to. He played a minute or two, and then we had to sit him down. Our bench has always been a strength, and they were strong again tonight. Whether it was Heide and Pharaoh off the bench, inside dunking the ball and rebounding it, or Taj, Kimo, and Wayne making shots and making plays. Our depth is helping us this time of the year. We seem to be fresh. Even though we're at the very end of the year, we seem to have fresh legs because we have a deep team, and hopefully, that will serve us well as we play the last five games of the conference schedule.”
On Nick Boyd’s improvement throughout the season:
“He’s been getting better around the basket. He's getting down there and he's scoring at that angle. Earlier in the year, he was driving in there and just launching into the other big guy and falling down. He wasn't going to get that call. We told him, ‘You're not going to get that call. You have to play on two feet and play the right angles.’ He's done a good job listening to what we had to tell him and he's made adjustments in his game. He's playing better because of it. If he continues to play well, we'll be good, and if he doesn't, we'll struggle. Hopefully, he continues to play well.”
On if he was surprised by anything that Fresno State showed them on defense:
“Zone offense has more freedom within it. When you're running set plays in man-to-man, you kind of know what you're going -more- to get. As a coach, when you're running a zone offense, the players have to decide if they're going to hit the high post. The plays are different than we’ve run all year, so it takes it out of the head coach's hands. I was nervous that we would turn the ball over too much. Every time we come in at halftime, they have 12 turnovers and I tell them, ‘You can only have three in the second half.’ I said, ‘Let's reverse that tonight.’ I came in at halftime and we had two turnovers, then we had eight in the second half, so we reversed it. We didn't turn it over when the game started, and that's why we kept them from running on fast breaks. The only fast breaks they really had were on made baskets, and that's to be expected. Nobody runs on makes, and Fresno’s one of the few teams that did, and they caught us by surprise. Once we got that worked out, I thought our halfcourt defense was really good.”
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-770033d1c5c4820fdbde4ecf2452e810.jpg "Bodie De Silva")
Bodie DeSilva has been covering sports in San Diego for more than a decade. He previously covered San Diego State athletics for Scout/Fox Sports.