Aztecs battle Lobos, and altitude, in trip to New Mexico – elcajon newson Elcajon News only

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Miles Byrd was a freshman when he learned about the mountain part of the Mountain West for the first time, for a game at Wyoming early in the conference schedule.

Byrd was redshirting and didn’t play, but he went on the trip with San Diego State’s basketball team and shuffled down the tunnel from the locker room to the court for warmups. The locker room has signs warning about the deleterious effects of intense physical exertion at high altitude. The tunnel is painted with “7,220” in huge numbers, the elevation in Laramie – the highest in Division I. It’s also painted in the court, just in case you forget.

“Before I even took a layup, I was gasping for air,” Byrd said. “Elevation is definitely a thing.”

Byrd, now in his third season, knows that. Most of his teammates are about to find out.

The Aztecs head to New Mexico for their third true road game of the season but the first, notably, in altitude for almost the entire roster. The Pit is 5,108 feet above sea level, one of six Mountain West venues topping 4,500, which is when people living at sea level really start to feel the rarefied air.

The Aztecs (10-3, 3-1) have been surprisingly good on the road this season, not usually the hallmark of a young roster, but a team’s form when it can breath and when it can’t are often two different things.

“It will be interesting to see,” coach Brian Dutcher said. “Altitude affects everybody differently. You have these guys at altitude for the first time, we’ll see who it has an adverse effect on. Hopefully, nobody.

“There’s the extreme where guys get a headache, get sick and can’t play at all. We’ve had that happen. Then there are guys where you look up and they’re a step slow. It’s not anything where they’re bent over holding their knees, they’re just slow to make a play. Sometimes you have to be keenly aware of that and play a guy that doesn’t look as fatigued and can play through some of that.”

Byrd’s first game in elevation was last year at The Pit, and he did fine: a season-high 13 points on 5 of 9 shooting in an 88-70 loss.

Two weeks later, the Aztecs played at Colorado State at 5,025 feet.

“We all were feeling it early in the game,” Byrd said. “I came in as a little spark plug, we went on a little run, and after I came out I went into the hallway and just poured water all over myself. My calves started shaking. It was a rough event.”

That also ended in a loss, as did five of SDSU’s six games above 4,500 feet last season. The lone win came at last-place Air Force.

Fellow sophomore Miles Heide played in six altitude games. The rest of the roster has played in seven, combined, in their career.

Freshman Taj DeGourville spent part of his senior year at Wasatch Academy in central Utah, and he remembers his first few days after arriving on campus at 5,925 feet.

“It’s going to be tough at first, but when that second wind hits, we’ll be alright,” DeGourville said. “We have to come in there with the right mindset. We can’t think we’re going to be tired because of the elevation. We have to push through it.”

Some coaches at sea-level programs downplay elevation’s effects or ignore it altogether. There are stories of a coach once telling his players before a game at Wyoming that the arena was pressurized like an airplane cabin, so they wouldn’t feel the 7,220 feet.

Dutcher takes the opposite approach, acknowledging it, accepting it.

In recent years, athletic trainer Sergio Ibarra has given players beetroot juice starting three or four days out, sometimes from a powder formula, sometimes homemade in his kitchen. Studies indicate, because beets are rich in nitric oxide, it enhances the ability of blood vessels to deliver oxygen to muscles, particularly when oxygen levels in the air decrease at higher elevations.

Hydration is important, too. So is a deep bench, something SDSU has always strived to have, in part, with an eye to a half-dozen games each season above 4,500 feet (and two above 7,000).

“We talk about altitude to a degree,” Dutcher said. “We don’t try to make it the end all, be all. We tell them that we might go shorter (playing) segments for you if you’re tired and don’t be afraid to ask to come out, then try to get a second wind. We deal with it. We don’t try to put our head in the sand and pretend it doesn’t exist.”

And it’s not the sole challenge playing at New Mexico. The Lobos, with nine, rank second in Mountain West history in regular-season or conference tournament titles behind SDSU’s 16. This season, they’re 13-3 after a six-game win streak and sit atop the conference standing at 5-0.

The 15,411-seat Pit is also arguably the Mountain West’s largest, most hostile crowd and routinely sells out for the annual showdown against the Aztecs.

Nick Boyd has never played at altitude but he’s been to Albuquerque, with Florida Atlantic during the season he sat out with a broken foot.

He remembers “Snake,” the Lobos’ tatted-up superfan who paints his face, sits adjacent to the visitor’s bench and screams at it from tip to buzzer. He remembers the long, cement ramp from the floor to the locker rooms, and how winded he got just walking up it.

He mostly remembers the crowd, though, and how loud it was.

“FAU back then wasn’t anybody and it was rocking,” Boyd said, “so I can’t imagine what it will be like Saturday.”

Said Byrd: “I’ve been telling them, it’s going to be a great atmosphere in there, similar to Viejas. They have a very loyal fan base in New Mexico. It’s going to be a soldout game. We’re going to have to come in there composed and not let the environment get us out of our element.”

Altitude, and attitude.