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San Diego State is in the midst of a 10-day break between games, a chance to study for final exams, a chance to rest aching bodies, a chance to reinforce fundamentals, a chance to install new plays ahead of facing Cal in San Jose on Dec. 21, a chance for BJ Davis to take a deep breath and reset.
The 6-foot-2 guard who appeared in only 12 games last season, most of them in mop-up duty, is finding out what it’s like to be at the top of the scouting report after an absolutely torrid start to his sophomore year.
Davis introduced himself to the college basketball world with 28 points in a closed-door scrimmage at No. 18 UCLA in October. He continued through the regular season’s first five games, scoring in double figures in all five, averaging a team-high 15.0 points, shooting 60% overall and making half his 3-point attempts.
In the four games since: 5.5 points, 34.8% shooting and just 28.6% on 3s.
“I just felt like the ball was finding me in those previous games,” Davis said. “These games more recently, I felt I had to do more on the defensive end and lock in down there. We’re still putting up great offensive numbers and everybody is eating, so I have no complaints as long as we keep winning.
“Definitely that has played into it, people just scouting and taking things away. … I feel they’re guarding me really tight. I feel like everything is harder, I have to work harder for things. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. I just have to find ways I can still score and get my shot up.”
All part of the process, according to Aztecs coach Brian Dutcher.
“When you’re the leading scorer, then teams set their defense to you,” he said. “He’s drawn more attention, and that’s freeing up other guys. As other guys start to score, he may find more freedom in his play. That’s just basketball.
“There’s a learning curve to all of this. He’s just in the learning curve now. We’re trying to be encouraging in practice and tell him he’s good. … You have to work toward that goal of being at your very best every time you step out there, and if you do that eventually your night will come again. And his night will come again.”
The glass
One of the primary focuses this week, to no one’s surprise, has been rebounding after the Aztecs surrendered 17 offensive boards — 14 in the second half — in last week’s 81-75 win against Cal Baptist.
There’s a particular urgency to fix it, given the next two opponents.
Cal Baptist ranks 85th nationally in offensive rebounding rate at 33.8%, or the percentage of your own missed shots that you retrieve. Cal is 16th at 38%. Utah State, which comes to Viejas Arena on Dec. 28, is second at 42.3%.
And SDSU ranks 249th in grabbing offensive boards and 286th in preventing them.
Asked what’s on his Christmas list, Dutcher said: “I’d like to have a rebounder in my stocking, but I don’t think we can. We have the team we have. We have to get better at rebounding. It’s always been said, ‘You can teach rebounding, or you can recruit rebounding.’ And so we have to teach rebounding right now. We work on it every single day.”
After scouring film of every lost rebound, Dutcher arrived at one working theory.
“We’ve just got to free our hands up a little more,” he said. “We’re physically boxing out, but we’re working so hard on boxing out that we’re not turning and getting the ball. We’re getting locked up physically, unable to turn around and get our hands free.”
Tip time set
Just 11 days before the game, Fox finally set the tip time of Utah State’s visit to Viejas Arena on Dec. 28. It’s 3 p.m.
It’s the first of what could be three straight Saturday afternoon games on big-boy network TV. The following Saturday, the Aztecs are at Boise State at 1 p.m. PST on CBS. The only game remaining without an announced tip time is Jan. 11 game at New Mexico — also a Saturday on CBS — but that is expected to be late morning or early afternoon.
The earliest tip over the remainder of the regular season is 5 p.m. Most games are 7, 7:30 or 8 p.m.
Rankings and metrics
The Aztecs held steady at No. 23 in The Associated Press poll this week despite losing 26 voting points, from 276 to 250. A week earlier, they did not appear on 20 ballots, about one-third of the total. This week, that climbed to 22.
Meanwhile, they rose one spot in the USA Today coaches poll to No. 23 but fell noticeably in the NCAA’s NET metric to 56 – a full 20 places worse than their season high of 36 on Dec. 5. They are 23 in strength of record, 37 in KPI, 43 in Kenpom, 51 in ESPN’s BPI and 57 in T-rank.
Magoon Gwath dropped to second nationally in blocks per game at 3.44, trailing Youngstown State 7-3 center Gabe Dynes at 3.55. As a team, SDSU is second behind UConn by percentage points – 6.78 to 6.82.
Keshad’s NBA debut
Keshad Johnson became the 16th SDSU alum to play in the NBA and the first alum this season, with Kawhi Leonard still sidelined for the Clippers, Jaedon LeDee, Malachi Flynn, Jordan Schakel and Jalen McDaniels in the G League, and Nathan Mensah leaving the G League for Olympiacos in Piraeus, Greece.
Johnson is on a two-way contract with the Miami Heat, meaning he can bounce between the NBA and G League. He recently was called up for a stretch of games with the Heat and got into two of them, scoring his first NBA basket (a dunk) in six minutes against the Boston Celtics and grabbing two rebounds in seven minutes against the Lakers.
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