The Rise and Rise of St. Mary's Basketball and How a Basketball Game Changed Lives

There's a phrase popularly said regarding the best high school team's in the nation, "They don't rebuild, they reload." There's a lot of colleges that do this too--like a Duke or a Michigan State. But sometimes the reloading is done in places you don't expect it to happen, yet it does time and time again. If you don't follow college basketball, most people throughout the United States are probably unfamiliar with the town of 16,755 people in California called Moraga. If you do follow the college game, however, you probably know that St. Mary's College is located there and that they're coming off a Sweet Sixteen season led by Omar Samhan, who led the West Coast Conference regular season in scoring with 21.5 ppg, rebounds with 11.1 per game, and block with 2.9 per game). He was named the WCC Defensive Player of the Year and was a First Team All-WCC selection. He had a phenomonal first 2 games in the NCAA Tournament averaging 30.5 points and 9.5 rebounds while shooting 75 percent 24-32 from the floor. He also became the school's most prolific scorer in a single season. He's currently playing in Lithuania with BC Zalgiris.

Before Samhan, St. Mary's had Patrick Mills. Mills who now plays point guard for the Portland Trail Blazers, signed with the Gaels in November of 2006. An important thing to note is Mills Australian heritage. He is one of the youngest players to suit up for Australia's national team and one of the first Indigenous Australians to play in the NBA. Mills became the 5th Australian player that coach Randy Bennett successfully recruited since arriving at Moraga in 2001. One of the other Australians to have played under Bennett at St. Mary's was fellow AIS old boy Daniel Kickert, the Gaels' all time leading scorer. Like Kickert, he became the first freshman to start for the Gaels since Kickert did so in the 2002-03 season. In the fourth game of the 2007-08 season, he entered the American consciousness when he scored 37 in an upset of nationally ranked Oregon on November 20th. They became nationlly ranked for the first time since 1989 after a 7-0 start and have not left the consciousness since. In their Christmas Tournament in Hawaii that year, the Gaels won and Mills was named tournament MVP. He won several accolades as a freshman and they went on to the NCAA Tournament where they lost in the first round to Miami (Florida). Mills had 24 in that game and was the only Gael to score in double figures.

Randy Bennett took over a team in 2001 that had gone 2-27 in the 2000-01 season. In his 10 or so seasons, he has a overall record of 203-107 and a conference record of 86-49. His most impressive season was last year going 28-6 and making it to the Sweet 16. In 04-05, he went 25-9, 07-08 went 25-7 and 08-09 went 28-7. He has been to the tournament 3 of St. Mary's 6 times. They've made it in 1959, 1989, 1997, 2005, 2008 and 2010. Prior to him coming to Moraga, the Gaels were 1-3 in the tournament and have since gone 2-3 with him. So Bennett has led an underappreciated turnaround and one that stays off the radar when you think about programs who have become great overnight. In this case, it is probably because of the fact that Gonzaga is in their conference and are consistently on the national radar.

I thought this team would not be very good without the double double threat Samhan. The rest of the team were pretty much slightly above average Australian players who were good ball handlers and three point shooters. This was one of those cases I was wrong. As I said, some teams don't rebuild, they reload. Turns out that St. Mary's has the ability to reload too and this season's potential Omar Samhan has a interesting backstory both personal and collegiate and is very fortunate to be both playing ball and alive.

A couple weeks ago, when I was watching St. Mary's epic win against Gonzaga in Spokane, a place where Gonzaga has gone 50-1 or so over the last few years, I noticed a familiar face. A couple years ago in a 4-13 matchup in the NCAA Tournament, the Connecticut Huskies played the San Diego Toreros and the Huskies were upset 70-69. One of the players on that team, Rob Jones, was a freshman at the time, yet played more like a senior on that day scoring 14 points and pulling down 6 rebounds in 29 minutes of play and was one of the key pieces to leading San Diego to an upset win that day. He wound up transferring out of San Diego after the 2008-09 season and went to Diablo Valley College in the 2009-10 school year where he did not compete in basketball. He completed his AA degree in Fall of that year before transferring to Saint Mary's for the spring semester. This season he has been playing very well, leading the team in scoring in 6 of those games--2 of those were BYU and at San Diego State, both of who are in the top 10. He has led the team in rebounding in 16 of the Gaels 24 games. He is second on the team in scoring with 14.3 ppg and leads the team in rebounding with 7.6 boards per game.

They only lost 4 players from last year, Samhan and Ben Allen were the 2 biggest losses by far. But they still keep Matthew Dellavedova and Mickey McConnell who are huge contributors to the team and more than enough to potentially get the Gaels a couple wins in this year's tournament. Add Jones and a couple freshman to the mix and they are still a very formidable team. I don't think Jones is as dominant an inside force as Samhan, but he clearly has talent and has made a difference for this Gaels team.

In his senior year of high school, Jones knew he was either going to San Diego or St. Mary's. Eventually, Rob's father was diagnosed with renal failure and would have to undergo dialysis for a failing kidney. Rob said 'I found out my dad was sick, and it was hard. I didn't really have a father figure down there at the time. It was a rough time for me, not being able to communicate with my dad as much as I wanted to with him being in the hospital". He informed the San Diego staff that he was going back to the Bay Area to be with his family. Rob's father is back in good health and Rob appears to be improving as a player. Rob said "my mom and dad are right up there behind the basket, my godmother comes to the games, my brothers come to the games all time time. It reminds me of high school and that family feel. It's good."

So while that's his collegiate story, the personal story is a harrowing one I'm sure for both him and his dad and it's a part of their life they don't acknowledge and try to leave behind even though unfortunately for them, it will always be part of their family's history. Rob's father, Jim is the adopted son of cult leader Jim Jones who was the founder and leader of the Peoples Temple. On November 18, 1978, more than 900 Temple members in Jonestown, Guyana committed suicide by being poisoned by cyanide. The results of this day was the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster until the September 11th attacks. Jones reason to commit suicide was because he was paranoid and believed that intelligence organizations were conspiring against the Temple and that "men would parachute in here on us", "shoot some of our innocent babies" and "they'll torture our children, they'll torture some of our people here, they'll torture our seniors." Jones also believed the hostile forces would convert captured children to fascism. Because of that reasoning, Jones and several members argued that the group should commit 'revolutionary suicide" by drinking cyanide-laced grape flavored Flavor Aid along with a sedative. When members apparently cried, Jones said "Stop this hysterics. This is not the way for people who are Socialists or Communists to die. No way for us to die. We must die with some dignity". He also said "Don't be afraid to die", Death is "just stepping over into another plane" and that "death is a friend". At the end of the "death tape" that was made, he said "We didn't commit suicide, we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world." Another event that stands out with the Jonestown suicides is that in November 1978, U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan led a fact-finding mission to Jonestown to investigate allegations of human rights abuses. His delgation included relatives of Temple members, Don Harris, an NBC network news reporter, an NBC cameraman and reporters for various newspapers. On November 17, Ryan's delegation reached Jonestown. The following day they left after Temple member Don Sly attacked Ryan with a knife. Congressman Ryan and his people succeeded in taking with them fifteen People's Temple members who had expressed a wish to leave. Upon leaving however, Ryan, three journalists and a defecting temple member were shot at and 9 others wounded. The murder of Congressman Ryan was the first and only murder of a Congressman in the line of duty in the history of the United States.

It's not everyday a person can say a basketball saved their life. In this case, Rob's dad can

and Rob would have never been born if not for the fact that Jim Jr. did not take part in the mass suicide because they were playing with the Peoples Temple basketball team against the Guyanese national team in Georgetown. After the mass suicide, Guyanese soldiers kept the Jones brothers under house arrest for five days, interrogating them about the deaths in Georgetown. Upon returning to the United States, Jim Jones Jr. was placed under police surveillance for several months while he lived with his older sister, Suzanne, who had previously turned against the Temple. Unfortunately, Jim lost his wife and unborn child at Jonestown and has returned to San Francisco where he has obviously remarried and has 2 other sons besides Rob.

I find Rob's personal and collegiate stories fascinating. To know that you're only alive because your dad had a basketball game the day the mass suicide happened has to make everyday a gift for both Rob and his dad. This is one of the best examples you can give for living life to the fullest, because you never know what can happen. It almost seemed to an extent the mass suicide was a spur of the moment thing. It almost seemed that the Peoples Temple knew that after the killing of Congressman Ryan as well as the others, they were pressed for time. Fortunately Jim Jr. had a good hand. For all the bad that came out of that incident, the fact that the remaining Jones' can still make a positive difference to their communities and to people around them are a great thing. Without Rob is St. Mary's a 20-4 team, leading the WCC and well on their way to making the NCAA Tournament for the 3rd time in 4 years? I doubt it. The fact that he has led rebounding in 16 of those 24 games and led scoring in 6 of them is a testament to that and how important he is for the Gaels. He seems to have found his comfort zone in Moraga and seems to be enjoying his time at St. Mary's and hopefully they'll continue to be a factor in the WCC race over the years. I expect him to have a great rest of the year and believe he is more than capable of at least putting up comparable numbers to that of Samhan last year. It is also a great thing to see how the Jones are still so often to come together as a family to watch Rob play games in Moraga and I think Rob did a great unselfish thing by being closer to his family so he could be near his dad during his sickness as well as so he could see his family more often. I look forward to seeing how Rob continues to develop and it'll be interesting to see where his journey goes from here.

You Can't Always Get What You Want...

Let me start by saying that I had a very enjoyable weekend. It started after my 1-2:15 class ended on Friday Afternoon. My high school's game against J.P. Stevens was postponed from Thursday evening due to the snow. So I headed up to that. J.P. Stevens only had 2 wins on the year so I expected it to be a quick game for our 14-2 team. We started out sluggish but quickly put things together to cruise to a 53-22 win. I'm sure over the next month or so I'll be a lot more intensive with my high school team as well as other high school teams throughout the state. After that, I headed back down to Monmouth to meet up with my friend so that we could go to trivia down the shore. We wound up having a great night and won a $40 dollar gift card to the place. In addition, because we were the team that got 3 answers right and were the first to bring up the answer we got 3 drinks on the house which was awesome.

The following day was going to be a busy one as Monmouth was having a doubleheader against the Long Island Blackbirds and I was working the game for MSG. The women wound up cruising to a huge victory and really shot the lights out and are playing pretty good ball right now while the men did what they do every game, seemingly keep it close before losing a heartbreaker at the end. So overall, it was a long day down at school and unfortunately we couldn't go 2-0.



You may be wondering why I titled this post after the great Rolling Stones song. Obviously the song is pretty well known but for those who aren't familiar, the refrain has a line which says "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need." I think this line really epitomizes the second half of my weekend--being Saturday evening and Sunday. As you can probably see by now, I am a college hoops junkie. I don't mind seeing any team play even if it's the most irellevant conference thats being displayed. My dad refers to me as an 'event guy' meaning I'll see anything regardless of the sport. That is probably for the most part true but you couldn't pay me to see equestrian or some other olympic sports. Usually when it comes to college basketball, I'll look at the schedule for the upcoming week for the days I'm free and pick out a couple worth checking out(3/4 games I was thinking about going to this weekend happened to be team's whose gyms I had not yet been to.)



I'll recap the results of these 4 games

Brown @ Penn-Penn overcame a second half deficit of 10 points to wind up defeating Brown by 2 in overtime.



#2 Pittsburgh @ Rutgers-Almost had a monmoumental upset in Rutgers basketball history as they went down to the wire against a Panthers team ranked 2nd in the nation. Rutgers 3 was off at the end of the game to give Pittsburgh the 3 point win.



#3 Duke @ St. John's-St. John's led pretty much wire to wire over a phenomonal 3rd ranked Duke team and won by 15.



Manhattan @ Marist-Another great game, Manhattan hit a 55 foot shot at the buzzer to win 60-59.



So in those 4 games, there was an overtime game, a near upset, an upset and a buzzer beater which actually made headlines today on Yahoo.com. Think about that for a minute, a Manhattan-Marist game made headlines. Two teams who are combined 8-37 and I missed that. I've seen 7 of the 10 MAAC schools play in their home gym and that would've definitely been the best game so far of the MAAC games I've been to and I missed it. It's frustrating when you look at the games you were thinking of going to and they wind up being good games. For the most part in the times that that has happened they haven't been good games but I got burned this weekend. I've been fortunate to see some great games this year. Only a couple have been bad and there was still something to take away from those games. An example would be Columbia-Maryland Eastern Shore which was a 108-74 blowout, but how often do you get to see an Ivy League school drop 110. Or Monmouth's 40 point loss to Nova, once again how often do you get to see your college take on a top 10 team like Villanova at home?



So you might ask what'd I do instead? Well I got a text from my dad after working at Monmouth asking if I wanted to go with my family to the Meadowlands Racetrack. Without missing a beat, I immediately said yes, even though the entire day I had planned on either going to the Brown-Penn or Pitt-Rutgers game that evening. I guess there's a multitude of reasons on why I did that...I had already seen Penn play a basketball game at the Palestra so it was not like I necessarily had to see them. Second, the Rutgers game was much later--it started at 8 and frankly, there's no challenge in seeing them. I'm 15 minutes away I could see them anytime...although they are the remaining NJ school I have yet to see. Or maybe it was just the fact that I enjoy spending time with my family and going to the racetrack. I also knew my dinner would already be paid for although truth be told, Geno's or Pat's in Philly is damn hard to turn down. My friend Dan and I also had planned on going somewhere to watch Strikeforce as well and I knew if I was coming back from Philly I'd probably be a lot later than coming home from the Meadowlands. Then yesterday, I was thinking of going to either the Manhattan-Marist game or Duke-St. John's game but sometimes with these further distances like a Marist which is a little more than 2 hours away, I have to be more secretive with my parents cause they think I'm freaking nuts trying to see all these games, a few of which at this point have been out of state and a couple hours away. It also didn't help matters that this game was a 12PM game so if I wanted to go I would have needed to leave pretty early. I was going back and forth on the Duke-St John's game which started at 1 and I guess the main reason I didn't go to that is truthfully I thought Duke would win relatively easily...oops and also was feeling a little lazier yesterday morning and wasn't really in a hurry.

So what'd I do instead? I wound up taking a drive up to the Scranton area to visit my friend at her college to watch the NHL All Star Game and hang out with her. She's been my friend since elementary school and I told her back in our freshman year that I'd love to visit sometime but never was able to get up there so I am glad I finally did, before she graduates. It was a lot of fun watching the ridiculous 11-10 All Star game, going to dinner and catching up with her.

I guess the ultimate point I want to make here is that basketball will always be there. I can see a game anytime I want for the rest of my life. Hell, the next 2 months of my blog will be heavily reserved for that...this is what my basketball schedule looks like over the next 2 months or so...

2/12-13-The Primetime Shootout in Trenton featuring some of the best teams in the nation



2/19-20-Me previewing the county quarterfinals



2/26-27-Me previewing the state tournament



3/5-6-Me previewing the later rounds of states/conference tournaments



3/12-3/31 Me previewing March Madness

And while I did want to get up to a couple games this weekend, especially since they all wound up being great games. A realization I had this weekend is that I could do that anytime. I mean I guess obviously this is always in the back of your mind as well but on the way back from the racetrack, my parents informed me that one of their friends for nearly 30 years passed away of a heart attack. He was 59 years old. I saw him probably a single digit number amount of times in my life. Whenever I saw him though, he seemed like a great and funny guy. It's weird how you can see someone only a few amount of times in your life before they're taken away from you which is why I guess a good way to treat someone is to treat them as if it's the last time you're ever going to see them. You never know when someone you know or love is going to be gone. Nothing in life is guaranteed outside of death and taxes which is why it's incredibly important to live each day to the fullest because you never know when your time is going to run out.

This relates to my weekend however because as I keep saying basketball is always going to be around. Unfortunately, going to the racetrack with my family isn't. None of us are going to live forever but if there is an opportunity to capture one more memory with my family and possibly win some money in progress, 9 times out of 10, I will take advantage of that opportunity. Even though I am a huge basketball fan, I am a bigger fan of my friends and family and at the end of the day, they matter most to me even if they think I'm crazy with half the shit I do, and believe me, a lot of it is crazy. The same thing goes for my friends too--any one of us could die at any time. Fortunately, I've been lucky with this so far through my life. No one in my graduating class from high school has passed away yet and none of my close friends either. Thank God. I don't know what I'd do without them. What was most important to me this weekend, was hanging with my friends and really following through on things I said to them in the past. A couple times in the past Dan and my plans have fell through for watching Mixed Martial Arts so I felt bad about that and I also had told my friend Nikki 3 years ago, that I would visit her some point at her college. So I'm glad I was able to do both.

So while I wanted to go to a couple of games this weekend but never got around to actually seeing them, what I really needed was to be around my friends and family...to socialize, to catch up, to have fun, to reminisce, to learn, to joke, to explore, to bs. That is what I really needed. Basketball can wait. Friends and family can't, and I wouldn't want it any other way. They mean the world to me.

Thoughts on the SDSU-BYU game

Well the first 30 minutes or so played out the way I expected them too. A close, hard fought, moderately high scoring game which was very back and forth. I expected this game go down to the wire, but instead, with the score tied at 44, BYU went on a 16-8 run to take a 60-52 lead with 4:12 to go. They went on to win 71-58. At the very least even though I predicted BYU to lose, I correctly predicted their point total on the dot with 71, so I take solace in that lol. To me, San Diego State played that game exactly how they had to. They allowed Jimmer Fredette to get his points while severely limiting the rest of the team. Outside of Fredette, BYU hit 11-32 baskets which is a little better than 33%. One of the players who I said had to sept up for BYU did last night in Brandon Davies, who went 6-8 from the field for a total of 14 points and 5 rebounds. You obviously knew Fredette was going to get points and he did. With his performance last night, I don't think anyone in the country doesn't know who he is anymore and last night's game is final confirmation come tourney time, no one will be sleeping on the Cougars.

The area in which this game was lost was on offense for the Aztecs. Like I said, defensively I thought they played the game pretty well but they just couldn't do anything on offense. First off the free throws could pose a concern later on in the season. They only shoot 67% from there and shot 9-15 (60%) last night. I was talking to my friend and he said they're not going deep in the NCAA Tournament unless they make their free throws and I don't know about that. As it is they will probably be pretty comfortable favorites in their first 2 round games and they have extra motivation that everyone is disrespecting them and they want to show that their great record was not a fluke. In addition, everyone said that about Memphis a couple years ago and while it did finally cost them the title, they still made the championship game. And I think this Aztec team while not as good as Memphis was offensively that year is much better defensively.

The other areas I thought they played poorly was connecting on second chance points. I've seen them play teams like Gonzaga, St. Mary's, UNLV, etc. this season and it was the first time I saw them getting rebounds but not converting layups. They held a 35-31 advantage on rebounding, although it felt like more. They went 17-42 from 2 point range which is 40.5%. They usually shoot roughly 10 percent higher than that for a game so last night they really struggled. In addition, they committed a lot of turnovers in the first half which helped BYU stay in it. D.J. Gay who coach Steve Fisher describes as "not the best player, but the most important" on the Aztecs team had his worst game of the season going 0-7 from the field and 0-5 from 3 point range for a paltry 2 points. I really doubt he plays that poorly again the second time around at the Aztec Bowl at Viejas Arena in late February for the rematch. And lastly, if the 0-5 is any indication, they just couldn't hit 3's. They shot 5-20 from the field while BYU shot 5-15. So the combination of missed free throws (SD State went 9-15, BYU 16-19), missed second chance points which I haven't seen all season from this Aztecs team and finally missed threes doomed this Aztecs team on this night.

San Diego State has a relatively easy schedule in the near future but will be faced with two good tests at Colorado State and at UNLV. I think this team will win out regular season and will make the conference championship game in the MWC Tournament. If it was BYU-SDSU Round III, I'm sure it'd be a hell of a game, especially on a neutral court and I think you'd have to still give the slight edge to San Diego State. Even though they're now a team with a loss, a lot of times, there's something to take out of finally losing a game. The pressure's off, the media goes away a bit and you can just focus on playing basketball and be the best team you can possibly be. I think this team will be ready come March and I hope to see another big game between these two. Maybe Jimmer will drop 50 then.

Intro/San Diego State-BYU Preview

Intro

Hello everyone and welcome to my new blog. As some of you may know, I have another blog at dansohler.blogspot.com, but wanted to start fresh for Professor Bradley's class, in which we have to run a ongoing blog. This to me is a perfect time to have a Sports Reporting class seeing as the sport I enjoy the most is basketball. That sport is obviously in high gear as the NBA and college season is near its halfway point and the state high school basketball seedings will be out soon as well. This blog will focus extensively on the sport of basketball. There's so many great stories out there and seemingly more in basketball than any other sport and as this blog and semester progresses, hope to bring some of these stories to light. My favorite sport is easily college basketball. I love how there's so many different teams--many of which are so close to us and they all have different styles and personalities to them. I love the buzzer beaters, the upsets, and the loser go home mentality. There is nothing in sports that tops the NCAA Tournament. It is important to note that I have a lifelong dream of seeing all 347 teams play games in their home arena. So far I have seen 27, in a little over 2 years, so I'd say I'm working at a good pace. I've been to games in 7 states so far (CT,DE,MA,MD,NJ,NY,PA). People might ask, why college basketball, as opposed to the NFL, NBA, MLB, etc. in which I wanted to see all the arenas and teams and there's three reasons for it:



1-It is probably the most challenging feat for a sports fan to accomplish and it's a challenge that I look forward to.



2-As an anthropology major as well, I feel the other major sports leagues all miss major locations which I feel helps define the regional identities while some others are college towns. For example, I tend to think places like Louisville add a lot to the Midwest's personality and what about college towns like Palo Alto, California or Ann Arbor, Michigan, how do the college teams there shape the area's identity?



3-I think some of the great stories of all time are rooted in college basketball. Within the last few years alone, a 11 seed has made the Final Four and a school with less than 2,000 students came within 2 points of defeating the future national champion in the Elite Eight. It is one of the few sports with a one and done playoff format and that certainly adds to the ppeal of the sport. It is a chance for little guys to upstage national powehouses which is why so many people get into March Madness as opposed to the MLB or NFL where it's generally the same teams year after year after year who are making the playoffs. Anything can happen and all it takes is one moment to make a play that these oung athletes will remember for the rest of their life. And as it goes with many tournament games of the past, a lot of the time these guys who step up and meake these game-winning shot are not future NBA players, but simply young college kids who work hard for four straight years and it eventually pays off for some of these guys. These guys aren't making big cities proud like professional athletes, but their college communities and their home towns (both of which can be very small sometimes).

This blog will cover some of those games I go to, as well as different thoughts and opinions around the basketball world in general ranging from high school all the way to the pros. Along the way, I'll give my predictions for state tournament as well as conference and NCAA tournament games as well as preview some of the marquee games going on throughout the regular season. This is usually the busiest time of the year sportswise for me and by the end of this semester I hope to show everyone why and why basketball is the best of the four major American sports.

San Diego State/BYU Preview

I'm sure I probably care about this game probably more than most East Coasters should but I'm in a very interesting college basketball pool where all 347 teams are in play. You create a roster of 11 teams using 100 fake dollars. I heard going into this season that San Diego State was a team capable of having a Butler like run from last year, so I jumped at the chance to take them, especially with having an 11 dollar value, which was a steal considering more unproven teams like Memhpis and Gonzaga were 12's. Duke was a 17 to put things in perspective. San Diego State lost a tough first round game last year to Tennessee, who always seems to show up come tourney time. They wound up advancing relatively deep into the tournament. San Diego State has a team you can't help but think will win come NCAA Tournament time. They start 3 seniors and 2 sophomores. However, one of their two sophomores is Kawhi Leonard. In his freshman year, he won Mountain West Conference Tournament MVP and first team selection. He is the only freshman in MWC history to earn first team all conference honors. He was one of only four freshman in Division I to lead his team in both scoring and rebounding. He finished last season averagin 12.7 points and 9.9 rebounds per game. So far this season Leonard is averaging 15.7 points per game. What I find interesting about this Aztecs team is through the 20 games they've played so far, they have had 6 leading scorers which shows the depth of this team and how there is not one guy they've relied on solely. Kawhi Leonard has been the overwhelming force on the boards capturing the team's high number in 14 of their 20 games. Their schedule has been relatively difficut playing at Big West Favorite Long Beach State, at perennial powerhouse Gonzaga, home against St. Mary's, Wichita State, at California, home against UC Santa Barbara and then of course teams like UNLV, BYU, New Mexico in conference play. But the thing is, through 2/3 of their schedule, they remain one of the 2 teams in the nation still undefeated, along with Ohio State. They have an us against the world mentality similar to that of Boise State and TCU in football and keep using the people who feel they shouldn't be ranked in the top 5 as motivation. I've seen this team play a few times and I like what I've seen. I like how they can win high scoring games as well as low scoring games. I like how they can rely on multiple people to score. I like how they're built like a more offensively sound version of Pittsburgh rather than a bunch of jump shooters like Butler or St. Mary's had last year. These kids are different physically than many other players you'll find at Mid-Major schools. They also have a decent coach in Steve Fisher who won a title back in 1989 at Michigan. They seem to be embracing all the attention they've been receiving from the media and have been put on national tv a lot more recently although good luck to people trying to find CBS College Sports, which is a reason why people still disrespect them. This game may be the Game of the Year in college basketball for at least its regular season. #4 San Diego State comes in with a 20-0 record while #9 BYU comes in with a 19-1 record. This may be the biggest game in Mountain West Conference history. They've only been around 12 years, but there may never have been this much at stake. For SDSU-A possible 1 seed, undefeated regular season, MWC Title. For BYU-if they finish strong at least a 2 seed, possible MWC Title, etc. For BYU, their play revolves around senior guard Jimmer Fredette who first made his presence known on the national stage last year in the 7-10 matchup vs. Florida where he scored 37 and hit two 3-pointers in double overtime to defeat the Gators, giving BYU their first tournament win in 17 years and he also tied a record for most points in an NCAA Tournament game for BYU. This year Fredette has been on fire for the Cougars. He leads the nation in scoring at 26 points per game while shooting 48 percent from the field. His high game this year was 47 against in state rival Utah. Besides Fredette, they have a freshman, sophomore, junior and senior starting and that is where I think things may get a little iffy for the Cougars. Are a freshman and sophomore ready for a huge game like this I think is really up in the air. The freshman is Kyle Collinsworth. Whether or not they win could be heavily based on his decision making. He's known as being a great passer but like I said before, will he be able to handle the bright lights on a national stage. Another 2 key players in this game will be the sophomore, Brandon Davies. San Diego State is undeniably a more athletic and taller team than BYU is. Brandon is their main post threat so he will have to play to all of 6 foot 9 ability if the Cougars wanna come out of this one on top. The same could be said for Noah Hartsock, who played a good game in the NCAA Tourney as well. He has matured a lot over the last year or so and was much better his sophomore campaign than his freshman one. He is a good all around players. He is capable of driving to the hoop, hitting mid range jumpers and threes, blocking shots and rebounding. Lastly, the main complement to Jimmer Fredette is senior guard Jackson Emery. If they want to win this game Emery is going to have to play well. If he doesn't have a good game, I think the Aztecs will be able to contain Fredette enough to come out of the game with a win. Emery is a great defensive player and is athletic. He isn't a prolific scorer but does contribute. He like Fredette is another good 3 point shooter and has gotten progressively better as the 3 years of playing time have gone by.

The three keys to this game are how Collinsworth and Davies play. Will they play beyond their years or will they show up like the freshman and sophomore players they are. I expect the Aztec players to be ready and expect the senior players to show up. Personally from what I've seen from Kawhi, I don't think there's a player on the Cougars team who will be able to defend him and I think the Aztecs team is a decent amount more athletic.

Let Fredette get his points. We know how good of a player Fredette his. Let him get his numbers and hone in the other guys who can potentially kill you like Hartsock and Emery. If you limit the rest of the team's points while allowing a lot to Fredette, you will likely come out on top. Although I don't see anyone stopping Fredette or Leonard, I think San Diego State is a more balanced team than BYU which could be cause for concern if Fredette is off...which I don't think he will be.

Best shot selection will win the game/Home Crowd. I haven't noted it yet, but these two teams are among the tops in the nation in terms of their shot selection and they account for nearly 50% from the field. Whoever takes better time and selection with their shots, will likely come out of this game victorious. The Provo crowd could also make an impact, but I have a feeling it won't impact SDSU that much as they've been in big spots before and expect both teams to play a great game.

Prediction- San Diego State 74, BYU 71. I have a feeling SDSU's experience will pay off here. They have found out that the sky is the limit for this team. As each game progresses they become more and more confident and have a never say die mentality. They are playing for a lot here and I expect guys like Tapley and Gay to step up. I expect Leonard and Fredette to have big games but I feel SDSU is a more athletic and well-rounded team and feel that SDSU has the defensive ability to limit Fredette to an extent and force the Cougars into enough poor decisions to get back to San Diego with a win and more importantly, a still unblemished record.