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FRESNO — The veterans who have weathered the Mountain West wars, who have been to Logan and Laramie, who have been to the mountains and the flatlands, will tell you conference road games are just different. They just are.
The idea is to hang a W, not a Picasso.
So you can understand the trepidation and apprehension and consternation of coach Brian Dutcher as a roster with no returning starters and a bunch of freshmen headed to Fresno State for their Mountain West opener, fresh off being ranked, feeling good about themselves after Saturday’s overtime win against No. 6 Houston, not knowing how different the season’s first true road game was going to be.
It came out OK in the end, an 84-62 victory by the No. 24 Aztecs before the usual smattering of fans at the Save Mart Center on a wacky night when Nos. 1, 2 and 5 in the Associated Press poll all lost.
And the lesson learned was a good one: Conference games aren’t always pretty.
This one wasn’t for about 25 minutes, until Dutcher’s youngsters settled down, until the Bulldogs started pressing and the Aztecs started shredding it, until redshirt Magoon Gwath showed why NBA scouts say they are quietly “intrigued” with his mixture of size and skill.
Gwath had the kind of breakout performance that Dutcher promised was coming: 25 points on 9-of-13 shooting (3 of 4 on 3s), 10 rebounds (five offensive), two blocks, only two fouls in 28 minutes.
And it helped them break out of the early doldrums in their ugliest half of the season.
They surrendered four offensive rebounds on their first four defensive possessions. They didn’t score for the first 4:48. They shot airballs. They bricked free throws. They got in foul trouble. They dribbled off their legs out of bounds. They tipped in a rebound into the Bulldogs’ basket.
The score after 15 minutes: Fresno State 15, SDSU 13.
Then Gwath made a 3 from the right corner. And then another from the same spot. And then another from the right wing.
He has shown that kind of range in practice, but in Division I games he was 1 of 6. By halftime Wednesday he was 3 of 3 and had 11 points, eight above his season average against Division I opponents (he had 16 in a 51-point win against Div. III Occidental).
The Aztecs (5-2) grew the lead to 10, but just when you thought they might make things easy for themselves, they allowed the Bulldogs to close to 29-25 at intermission. The Bulldogs had the ball to open the second half, missed, got another offensive board and the put-back made it a one-possession game.
It was that kind of night.
It’s on those kind of nights that the Aztecs rely on their defense until the shots start falling, and they did. The Bulldogs (3-5) were held to 27.3% shooting overall and 5 of 26 beyond the arc, and leading scorer Amar Augillard — the junior college national player of the year last season — went from averaging 17.6 points per game to none for the game’s first 32½ minutes. He finished with five points on 1-of-10 shooting before fouling out in just 17 minutes.
The Aztecs went from 36.7% shooting in the first half to 57.9% in the second. They got a combined 25 points from BJ Davis and Wayne McKinney III, 23 of them coming after intermission.
Notable
Next up: home against USD on Saturday (7 p.m., YurView and streamed on the Mountain West Network). Fresno State’s next home game is also against USD, on Dec. 14.
• SDSU radio announcer Ted Leitner was honored at halftime with a plaque and resolution from the mayor declaring it “Ted Leitner Day” in Fresno. This is Leitner’s final season calling SDSU basketball games. He retired from football last year
• There was a medical emergency in the stands shortly before tip-off, and a fan was transported by paramedics from the arena.
• A few minutes into the second half, the ball bounced into the sideline seats. A fan in a hoodie picked it up, took a dribble and launched a 3 that missed badly. “I didn’t warm up,” he said as the officials retrieved the ball.
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