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Midseason turnaround has San Diego State eying an NCAA bid
Before his team's resounding victory at UNLV last Saturday night, San Diego State coach Steve Fisher spoke candidly with his players about the Aztecs' NCAA tournament hopes.
"I told our team, 'If they picked the teams today, we probably wouldn't be in,'" Fisher said. "We need to keep winning."
Fisher's speech reflects San Diego State's unusual position as a team that's 9-0 in the Mountain West yet still far from a lock to make the NCAA tournament. The first-place Aztecs have plenty more work to do to atone for a poor non-league performance in which they only beat one of the four major-conference opponents on their schedule and also suffered damaging losses against Grand Canyon, Arkansas Little Rock and San Diego.
Adding to the challenge for San Diego State is that this year's unusually weak Mountain West offers the Aztecs few if any opportunities for resume-boosting wins. The league's only other top 100 RPI team is Boise State, which slipped to 87th after back-to-back losses to UNLV and New Mexico last week.
An outright regular season Mountain West champion has made the NCAA tournament every year since the league's inception in 1999, but Fisher recognizes merely winning the league is no guarantee this season. As a result of the non-league struggles of both the Mountain West overall and San Diego State in particular, Fisher concedes the Aztecs may need to finish in first place with room to spare to secure an NCAA bid without having to win the conference tournament.
"If we win with separation, I think it will say something," Fisher said. "If we win on the last day at the buzzer or if we tie, that's different. But if we have separation in winning the league, I think that speaks a little louder about what we've done."
It's a testament to how much San Diego State (16-6, 9-0) has improved in recent weeks that running away with the Mountain West title no longer seems like an unattainable goal.
Expectations were high for the Aztecs entering the season thanks to the return of three starters, the health of NBA prospect Malik Pope and the arrival of promising freshman point guard Jeremy Hemsley. Whereas past San Diego State teams had won with overlooked recruits and transfers in need of a second chance, this was a roster loaded with four-star recruits who had chosen the Aztecs despite ample interest from other programs.
For whatever reason, more pedigree didn't translate into better play. Not only were the Aztecs still a poor shooting team as expected in November and December, they were turnover-prone on offense, they surrendered too many second-chance opportunities and they struggled to defend the 3-point arc.
Equally alarming, they appeared to get tight late in games they were expected to win. San Diego State's loss to city rival San Diego was a bit of an aberration considering it was played outdoors at Petco Park, but the Aztecs surrendered 11 of the last 13 points against Arkansas Little Rock and nine of the final 11 points against Grand Canyon.
"After our last non-conference game, we didn't say, 'Oh man, we're 7-6 and we lost two home games that nobody thought we would lose and another game at Petco,' Fisher said. "That's what other people were saying, but you can't dwell on it and you can't listen to it. We just kind of bowed our back and trusted what we were doing, and we've gotten better."
There's no single reason Fisher can point to for San Diego State's turnaround. Instead he credits improvement in a handful of areas for the Aztecs rising to the top of the conference.
An already elite defense has risen all the way to No. 2 in KenPom's efficiency rankings because San Diego State's guards have made a greater effort to close out hard on 3-point shooters and its big men have focused on boxing out opposing offensive rebounders. It also has helped that center Skylar Spencer has evolved into one of the nation's elite rim protectors and that key freshmen Hemsley and Zylan Cheatham have become more comfortable with Fisher's defensive scheme.
Offense remains a work in progress for San Diego State, but the Aztecs are fifth in the Mountain West in efficiency since league play began. They've developed an identity over the past month, running the offense through versatile senior Winston Shepard in the post and giving shooting guard Trey Kell more of a green light to create from the perimeter.
"We found that playing through Winston or playing off Trey Kell has made us better," Fisher said. "With Winston, it wasn't so much about him trying to score the ball. It was about him being the one to make decisions. He went from a negative assist-to-turnover ratio to close to 2-1. And if our guys would go out and finish, he'd be 3-1.
"Trey's become assertive. Now he couldn't care less if he misses five in a row. He's going to take the next five exactly like it. I think that's been a mindset that we've benefited from."
Indeed Shepard has been effective in J.J. O'Brien's former role and Kell has averaged 15.6 points per game since the start of Mountain West play. Additionally, Hemsley has begun to read ball screens better and make smarter decisions with the ball in his hands and while Cheatham still plays too fast, he no longer tries to run shoot or dunk before he catches the ball.
There's still room for growth too if either Pope or sharpshooter Matt Shrigley can make a late-season impact. The long, agile Pope has shown occasional flashes of NBA potential but has not come close to tapping into that consistently, while Shrigley just returned a week ago from an offseason ACL tear.
San Diego State has risen to No. 47 in the RPI after being in the 100 range a month ago. The Aztecs have already completed several of their most arduous league road trips, winning at Boise State, Utah State, Nevada and UNLV.
Can San Diego State make up for its poor start to the season and win the Mountain West emphatically enough to make a case for an at-large bid? Fisher knows that won't be easy, but he's pleased with his team's effort thus far.
"This is a hard league to win on the road for a lot of reasons," he said. "The travel is a bear. The altitude. The logistics. And then you're going to venues where the crowds are there and they're supportive of their teams. So I'm very proud of the fact we've found ways to win our first nine games."
Nine down, plenty more work left to go.
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
