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AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. – With just seconds left in a one-point game earlier this season, San Diego State senior guard Wayne McKinney III was entrusted with ball in search of a winner.
He flared out to the right wing and shot a 3-pointer that rimmed out, and coach Brian Dutcher lamented that he didn’t get to the basket.
This time, McKinney got to the basket.
And he might have saved SDSU’s season.
McKinney’s coast-to-coast basket at the overtime buzzer gave the Aztecs a 77-76 win at Air Force on Wednesday night after all everything that could go wrong seemingly went wrong.
Like, everything.
Moments earlier, with the Aztecs up two, the Falcons had missed a 3-pointer but grabbed yet another offensive board — a theme all night — and little-used freshman Yoda Oke went to the line for two free throws with 4.9 seconds left. He made the first and missed the second … only for 7-foot center Wesley Celichowski to slip between two Aztecs and tip in the miss for a 76-75 advantage.
The officials went to the video monitor to check for goaltending.
No goaltending. Basket good. Aztecs ball, 4.5 seconds left, 94 feet away.
They inbounded to McKinney, and he had about 75 to go. He rubbed off a screen by Jared Coleman-Jones at midcourt, veered right and then turned downhill to the basket. The ball nestled into the net as the buzzer sounded.
Air Force players collapsed to the court while red-clad Aztecs players piled on McKinney.
Some context on how bad a loss this would have been had Air Force held onto modest leads late in regulation and in overtime: The Falcons entered the day ranked 297th in the Kenpom metric (out of 364 Division I programs), which would have made it statistically the worst by SDSU in the 29-year history of the Kenpom metric.
The Falcons are now 3-16 overall and 0-8 in the Mountain West.
McKinney finished with a team-high 18 points off the bench, most of it down the stretch in regulation and overtime without a blow. Coleman-Jones had 14. Magoon Gwath had nine points, seven rebounds and two blocks.
A 10-point lead midway through the second half became a four-point deficit inside three minutes to go. First, second-leading scorer Nick Boyd fouled out. Then leading scorer Miles Byrd did, and it was full-on nervous time.
Byrd’s fifth foul was a blocking call on a driving layup by Air Force freshman Kyle Marshall with 49 seconds left. The ball went in to tie it at 68-68, and Marshall suddenly had a free throw to take the lead.
But the Falcons rank 362nd out of 364 Division I teams in free throw shooting (60.9%), and true to form, Marshall missed. The Aztecs got two shots at a winner. Both missed, but both times the rebound was knocked out of bounds by the Falcons.
That gave SDSU the ball under its basket with 4.2 seconds left. A 3-pointer by freshman Taj DeGourville rimmed out, and we were heading to overtime.
The Falcons won the tip, worked the shot clock for 28 seconds and hoisted a desperation 3 … only for Gwath to foul Ethan Taylor, giving him three free throws. Which he made.
The Aztecs fought back and went ahead 75-73 on a floater by DeGourville. Air Force hoisted another contested 3 at the shot-clock buzzer that air balled but was tipped in … but, a video review showed, after the clock had expired.
But they couldn’t capitalize on the good fortune, and soon the Falcons had the ball back down two, looking for a dagger 3 to end it.
The Aztecs (12-5, 5-3) hadn’t lost a Quad 3 game in five years before Saturday’s 76-68 home defeat against UNLV. You have to go back to 2019 to find the last time they lost to someone outside the top 200 of the computer metrics. And that was at Clune Arena.
The Aztecs twice seemed to have the game under control — up eight midway through the first half, and up 10 midway through the second.
But the Falcons clawed back each time, using a 15-4 run to take a 53-52 lead with 8:47 left — their first since the game’s early minutes. From there, it was a back-and-forth affair into the anxious closing minutes.
The Aztecs had several issues, but the two most prominent were fouling and rebounding. Air Force was in the bonus early in both halves, meaning any foul put them on the line. And coach Brian Dutcher spent much of the evening on the sideline near midcourt, beseeching his team: “Rebound, REBOUND!!!”
The Aztecs didn’t trail 20-8 this time. But they also didn’t go on a 40-4 run, as they did two weeks ago at Viejas Arena in a 67-38 win. They led 25-17 after seeming to get the message from the coaches about the deeeeep 3s they aimlessly launched in Saturday’s home loss against UNLV, being more prudent with shot selection and making 4 of their first eight behind the arc. (Saturday, they were 3 of 16 in the first half.)
But it began unraveling from there. Over the final eight minutes of the half, they were outscored 14-6 and shot 3 of 12. They needlessly fouled late in the shot clock (twice, including once 35 feet from the basket). They reverted to logo 3s instead of probing the defense. Byrd got a technical foul for talking back to the officials. They put Air Force on the line, again and again and again.
The game featured the two worst free-throwing shooting teams in the Mountain West, and they didn’t disappoint. The Falcons entered the day at a paltry 60.9%, which ranked 362nd out of 364 Division I programs, and went 10 of 16 in the first half.
The Aztecs, who were shooting 67.7%, were even worse: 6 of 12.
Notable
The team headed to the airport immediately after the game for a charter flight home to Brown Field in the South County because it was scheduled to arrive well after San Diego International Airport’s curfew. They’ll practice Thursday and Friday on campus, then fly to Reno for Saturday night’s game at Nevada.
• Kimo Ferrari got his longest stretch of meaningful minutes, 7½ in the first half with both Byrd and McKinney in foul trouble. Ferrari made a 3.
• The Aztecs went 11 deep given foul trouble and 7,000 feet of elevation, inserting Demarshay Johnson Jr. into the rotation as well.
Originally Published:
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