Three thoughts on San Diego State’s 62-48 loss at New Mexico on Saturday:

1. Effort or elevation?

One of the advantages of chartering home immediately after a midday game, as the Aztecs did Saturday, is you arrive early enough to go straight to the film room at the JAM Center and re-watch key parts of what transpired with the coaches’ input.

The Aztecs typically do that the following day before practice. This way, they can address the team’s worst performance of the season and then flush it so Sunday and Monday practices can be devoted fully to preparing for Tuesday night’s home game against 4-1 Colorado State.

“I’ve got a coaching staff that won’t let this linger, that won’t overreact to it,” said coach Brian Dutcher, whose teams are 34-4 in their last 38 games following a loss. “Yeah, we want to play better, the kids want to play better, I want to coach better. It didn’t happen. We will put it in the rearview mirror without completely disregarding it. We’ll learn from our mistakes, but we won’t sit here and obsess about it to the point where it will cost us an opportunity at home against Colorado State.”

The tricky part, though, is sifting through the carnage and determining how much is attributable to effort and how much to elevation. The Pit sits at 5,108 feet. And, for most of the young roster, this was their first trip into high altitude.

“When you try to sprint back, you’ve got a piano on your back,” SDSU’s Jared Coleman-Jones said. “Pushing through that is hard. It’s an adjustment.”

So do you beat up your players in film, or give them a pass?

“Maybe we were a step slow; it’s always hard to tell,” Dutcher said. “It’s such a fine line at altitude. Usually, most people think they’re holding their knees, they can’t catch their breath. It’s, you’re a half-step slow to a play because you’re a little winded and you can’t get to the spot you’re supposed to get to.

“There were times where, if we can’t run down a long rebound or we can’t get a loose ball, is that because we’re a step slow or we’re not tough-minded enough? You never know. You can’t confuse a lack of toughness and effort with elevation. You walk that line at elevation.”

How do you know which it is?

“You just do your best guesswork,” Dutcher said.

They’ll get more data points, for better or worse. The Aztecs have five more games in the mountains this season: at Air Force (7,981 feet), at Nevada (4,573), at Colorado State (5,025), at Utah State (4,770), at Wyoming (7,220).

Record over the past two seasons above 4,500 feet: 1-6.

Below 4,500 feet: 35-9.

2. Woes, with an O

Dutcher regularly talks about leaning on the defense on days when shots aren’t falling, and they weren’t Saturday morning at The Pit.

The defense was still good, really good. New Mexico shot 35.8% overall and 6 of 28 behind the arc (21.4%) with .92 points per possession — all ranking as their second-worst figures of the season. The Lobos’ 62 points were their season low and 23 under their per-game average.

But some days, even SDSU’s defense can’t save itself from its offense, and this was one of them.

How bad was it?

The .71 points per possession is by far their worst of the season (the previous low was .94) and the worst in 108 games — and the third-worst total in the past eight seasons.

Another way to look at it: Over the last two seasons, the worst points per possession figure they’ve been able to overcome in a victory was .95.

The elevation and The Pit was certainly part of it, but the offense hasn’t been trending well. While the defense has climbed to No. 5 in the Kenpom metric’s defensive efficiency, the offense has gone in the opposite direction and now ranks 122nd nationally. In conference games, the Aztecs are ninth in the 11-team Mountain West and dead last in effective field-goal percentage (which accounts for baskets behind the arc being worth more than inside it).

The worrying part: Only one team to receive an at-large berth in the NCAA Tournament last year had an offensive efficiency ranking outside the top 75 (SDSU was 62nd). That was 10 seed Virginia at No. 200, and the Cavaliers lost 67-42.

3. A rough day

Saturday was not one of San Diego college basketball’s finer moments.

SDSU: The Aztecs scored 20 points in the first half, trailed by 20 and got pummeled in The Pit in front of a CBS national telecast with Bill Raftery. The lopsided loss cost the Aztecs five spots in Kenpom (from 31 to 36) and 10 in the NET (to 41). It also dropped them into a tie for fifth place in the Mountain West at 3-2, 2½ games behind co-leaders New Mexico and Utah State at 6-0.

UCSD: The Tritons appeared on linear TV (ESPNU) for the first time in program history, had students lined up across campus all day, led UC Irvine by six midway through the second half in the Big West showdown for first place and … shot 6 of 36 on 3s, got leading scorer Tyler McGhie only three shots, scored a season-low 52 points, lost by eight and had their 12-game win streak snapped.

USD: The Toreros scored the most points of the city’s three Division I programs with 56 … and lost by 47 at St. Mary’s after surrendering, gulp, 10 3-pointers and 62 points in the second half alone. The Toreros fell to 4-14 overall and 1-10 in their last 11 games.

The glass is half-full version, at least for SDSU and UCSD:

Less than three decades ago, the Aztecs were playing home games in Peterson Gym and had one of the worst programs in Division I. Now they regularly play across the street in front of sellouts at 12,414-seat Viejas Arena and went to the 2023 national championship game. For the last two years, big-boy Fox (two) and CBS (four) have televised six regular-season Mountain West games; SDSU has been selected for all six.

Five years ago, UCSD was in Division II playing in front of a few hundred family and friends at LionTree Arena. Saturday night, they had their second sellout (the other was last season against SDSU) and first game on an ESPN linear network (as opposed to their usual spot streaming on ESPN+).

“Our job as members of the basketball program is to continue to build great teams and play great basketball, and these types of environments are the result of that,” UCSD coach Eric Olen said. “If we put a good product on the floor, people will want to see that. … Disappointing night for us in terms of results and how that we maybe we played, but it is a glimpse of what’s possible and I’m excited that people got to see that.”

Originally Published: January 12, 2025 at 6:55 PM PST