MWC Tournament Championship Recap - San Diego State vs BYU

(2) San Diego State 72, (1) BYU 54

The sound was loud and clear in Sin City and it was music to every San Diego State partisan’s ears. It was the sweet song of redemption.

San Diego State exorcised two years’ worth of BYU demons by blowing out the top-seeded Cougars in the Mountain West Tournament championship game. The Aztecs, whose only two losses this season came at the hands of the Cougars, played with a bottled up insanity which BYU couldn’t match. It was the second straight MWC Tournament title for head coach Steve Fisher’s club.

Coming into the game, the Aztecs had dropped four straight contests to BYU dating back to last season. The Cougars had been the Aztecs’ only nemesis during the 2011 campaign and you could see the determination on the faces of the boys from San Diego that they were bound and determined to make this meeting different. Boy did they ever. The Aztecs took an early 8-6 lead and never looked back, extending the margin to as many as 23 in the second half.

Coming off a historic 52-point performance the night before, BYU superstar Jimmer Fredette was again the game-high scorer. The national player of the year frontrunner had 30 points on the evening but was seemingly out of gas down the stretch: The combination of his third game in three nights and the tremendously athletic San Diego State defenders he had to deal with all night long eventually wore him down. Fredette was just 10-of-25 on the night, and notwithstanding a late second-half surge to get head coach Dave Rose’s Cougars within 10 points, was just an afterthought when compared to the tremendous overall play of the Aztecs.

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San Diego State may have played its very best game of the season. The Aztecs absolutely dominated the undersized and thin Cougars in the paint. With starting BYU center Brandon Davies suspended for the season for a violation of the school’s honor code, the Aztecs pounded the Cougars on the inside and had their way from tip to horn. Billy White was tremendous, filling up the stat sheet with 21 points, 12 rebounds – seven of which were on the offensive glass – and five steals. White was also given the task to stop Fredette defensively. Suffice it to say, White was the catalyst to everything that went right for the Aztecs on Saturday evening.

With BYU shooting the ball poorly from the field, and the Aztecs emotionally took the fight to the Cougars on both ends of the floor. Missed shots and BYU turnovers turned into high-flying dunks and easy San Diego State baskets on the other side. The win pushed the Aztecs to heights unseen. San Diego State is in line to get a number-two seed in NCAA Tournament and with the level of play demonstrated Saturday night in Las Vegas, can be a serious contender for an appearance in the Final Four. With the BYU enigma solved, head coach Steve Fisher and company can now play to the beat of a different drum, and pray that the beat of the NCAA Tournament gives the Aztecs more nights like this one.

By: Zach Bloxham
DFN Sports Staff Writer