The two worst offensive games by San Diego State’s basketball team this season, both in advanced metrics and the old-fashioned eye test, came against UC San Diego and Utah State.

Those schools are in different conferences and different time zones, one with views of the Pacific Ocean, the other tucked into a snowy mountain valley at 4,770 feet. One is coached by a guy who has been with the program for 21 seasons, the other by a guy in his first. The Aztecs played one on Nov. 6, the other on Dec. 28.

There’s a common denominator, though.

“It’s the matchup zone,” coach Brian Dutcher said after his team scored 23 points in the second half, blew an 18-point lead and lost 67-66 against Utah State in its Mountain West home opener 10 days ago.

Matchup zones are different from your traditional zone defense because instead of guarding an area, you guard the player in your area man-to-man. It’s a zone with man principles, or man defense with zone principles, depending on your perspective or the particular scheme. The whole point is to confuse and confound.

Some teams can slice and dice them, as the Aztecs did last year with a 45-point first half at Air Force against the Falcons’ version of the matchup zone. Some teams struggle against them, as the Aztecs — with five new starters and a young rotation — have in two attempts this season.

They’ll get a third Wednesday night at Viejas Arena (7:30 p.m., Fox Sports 1). Air Force plays a matchup zone.

On paper, this shouldn’t be much of a game. The Aztecs are 9-3 and are coming off a 76-68 road win at preseason Mountain West favorite Boise State. The Falcons are 3-11 and winless in three conference games by an average of 17.3 points. The Kenpom metric projects a 23-point spread with a 98% chance of an SDSU victory.

But meeting that computer expectation – and not tumbling in the metrics if you fail, even in victory — will require solving the one defense that has flummoxed an Aztecs team which otherwise has been lethally efficient this season on offense.

“When you see things a lot,” point guard Nick Boyd said, “you get better at it.”

Offensive efficiency is measured by points per possession relative to the level of your opponent. The national average is 1.06, and the Aztecs average 1.12, which ranks 73rd among 364 Division I programs.

Against UCSD: .95.

Against Utah State: .94.

After the struggles against the crosstown Tritons, Dutcher reasoned his young team would learn from the experience and be better prepared the next time it encountered a matchup zone. And it was, scoring at close to a 1.4 clip in racing to a 40-22 lead against Utah State.

Then came the second half. The Aztecs regressed, allowing 14 possessions to tick inside 10 seconds on the 30-second shot clock and managing just four points from them. Points per possession over the final 20 minutes: .697, by far the worst half of the season.

“I feel like in the Utah State game,” Boyd said, “we took our foot off the pedal in terms of keeping the ball hot and getting in the middle of the zone, just shooting shots we normally make. We kind of second-guessed ourselves. It was just a strange game. We came out hot. We got out in transition a little more. But by the end of the game, they showed us down and bogged us down.”

One problem with matchup zones is they aren’t that common and you don’t regularly practice against them. Another is that traditional zone plays often don’t work, leading to the counterintuitive approach of running your man offense against what looks like a zone. Some coaches install hybrid offensive sets specifically designed to attack matchups.

Another problem: They don’t always cover the same plays the same way.

“You can run the same play and they’re going to guard it differently,” Dutcher said. “There’s that uncertainty. Just because a play worked the first time, you can run the same play again and now it doesn’t work.”

Case in point: In the first half against Utah State, the Aztecs had success getting the ball to the free-throw line and then attacking. In the second half, the Aggies pulled the middle defender away from the basket to cover the high post.

“It’s hard to read what the defense is in, what coverage they’re using with the ball screens,” said Boyd, the quarterback on the floor. “When defenses are changing, changing, changing, it’s hard for all five guys to see that at the same time. Whereas in football, you have somebody up top (radioing down from the coaching box) who can tell you, ‘They’re in this, they’re in that.’

“In basketball, it’s just me. And when we’re in Viejas and it’s rocking, it’s hard to get that message through.”

There were lethargic possessions that led to poor shots in the second half against Utah State. But there also were aggressive ball movement that led to good shots they just missed.

The Aztecs were 6 of 13 on 3s in the first half … and were 0 of 11 in the second.

“That turned out to be the difference,” Dutcher said. “We couldn’t make a 3. If we’re not making 3s against Air Force’s defense, it will just get more compact, like most defenses do. When you’re not making 3s, people say, ‘Well, take it to the basket.’ But you’re not making 3s, so there’s no room to go to the basket. Eventually, you have to make a 3.”

The good news for the Aztecs: Air Force’s opponents are shooting 37.8% behind the arc this season, among the worst defensive figures in Div. I.

Practice Thursday was devoted as much to deciphering the Falcons’ matchup zone as defending the Princeton offense and its array of back cuts, slipped ball screens, flares and rubs. Usually, the latter is the primary focus.

“We have some thoughts about what we want to do,” Dutcher said of the matchup against the matchup. “We’ll see if we can get it done.”

Originally Published: January 7, 2025 at 6:31 PM PST