San Diego State grinds down UNLV, 62-55

By Mike Grimala (contact)

Saturday, Jan. 1, 2022 | 4:29 p.m.

Kevin Kruger tried to prepare his UNLV team for what was awaiting them on Saturday in the Mountain West opener against San Diego State. He tried to warn them just how tough, physical and relentless the Aztecs would be, and his players no doubt took his words to heart.

But until the scarlet and gray’s roster of newcomers experienced it for themselves, there was really no way for them to understand the style that has been ingrained in the Aztecs’ program for 15 years.

Well, UNLV’s newbies learned the hard way, as San Diego State pulverized them on both ends of the court to hand Kruger’s squad a 62-55 defeat at the Thomas & Mack Center.

You could certainly chalk it up as an institutional win for San Diego State, which played without top two point guards Lamont Butler (injury) and Trey Pulliam (illness). The Aztecs simply plugged the holes and played their game, and it was enough to overwhelm UNLV.

On offense, UNLV was limited to a ghastly 29.7% performance from the field. On the other end of the floor they allowed the Aztecs to bulldoze their way to 19 offensive rebounds. And when the game was on the line — UNLV trailed, 53-49, with just under six minutes remaining — San Diego State turned up its intensity, holding UNLV scoreless for more than five minutes to pull away.

To put it bluntly, one team knows how to win in the Mountain West and does it every year consistently, and the other team is still in the early stages of trying to figure out that equation.

“Their culture,” Kruger said when asked what makes San Diego State so difficult to gameplan against. “Just the way they do everything. The way they guard everything and their physicality and their synergy amongst each other out on the floor. It’s tough to simulate [in practice].”

Accurate 3-point shooting allowed UNLV to build an early lead, but San Diego State stayed the course. Despite shooting just 31.6% in the first half the Aztecs attacked the offensive glass and came away with 13 offensive rebounds on 26 missed shots. That allowed the visitors to hang around and eventually pull ahead at the half, 35-32.

The second half was more of the same. Even when the UNLV defense came up with a stop, SDSU crashed the boards from every angle. By the time the final horn sounded, the Aztecs had pulled down 19 offensive rebounds and racked up 16 second-chance points.

UNLV big man Royce Hamm managed to grab 14 rebounds (12 defensive), but he couldn’t do enough to keep San Diego State from swarming every miss.

“I think all 3 through 5, they crash. They crash hard,” Hamm said. “It’s a good defensive team in San Diego State and those guys crash relentlessly. If you don’t put your body on a guy and you just try to look and go get the ball, they’ll come in there and crash and fly over you.”

UNLV played its best game of the season to close out the nonconference portion of the schedule, shooting 46.4% as a team in a win over San Diego on Dec. 22, but it was quite a step up from the Toreros’ defense to that of San Diego State. The scarlet and gray were unable to penetrate with any regularity, leaving senior guard Bryce Hamilton to try to create off the dribble.

With SDSU being so sound in its defensive principles, that proved impossible.

Hamilton did score 15 points, but it took him 19 shots to get there (6-of-19). Junior wing Donovan Williams had similar difficulties finding open looks (16 points on 5-of-13 FGs).

“They’re a top-10 defensive team in the country, so they played their defense,” Hamilton said. “They did it very well. We were very stagnant on offense. I put a lot of that on myself. We just have to do better moving the ball and getting them into rotations.”

Even given UNLV’s struggles on offense, the game was up for grabs late into the second half. When Williams sank a free throw with 5:54 remaining, UNLV trailed 53-49.

SDSU clamped down, however, holding UNLV scoreless until the final minute of the game. By the time the scarlet and gray managed another bucket they were down by 10 points and the contest was effectively finished.

San Diego State wing Matt Bradley scored 17 points, while big man Nathan Mensah totaled 10 points, seven rebounds and four blocks. Five of Mensah’s rebounds were offensive boards.

UNLV falls to 8-6 on the season and 0-1 in Mountain West play. Their Wednesday game at San Jose State has been canceled due to a COVID-19 outbreak in the SJSU program, so their next scheduled game is Jan. 8 at Air Force.

Despite the loss, Kruger believes that slamming into the brick wall that is San Diego State will ultimately prove to be a positive learning experience for his team.

“While we’ve played other teams that are of course very good and elite defensively, I think just being in conference and hearing about San Diego State, having seen it is just a little different,” Kruger said.

Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.