ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The land of enchantment, indeed.
San Diego State got its most dramatic win of the season, 73-71 against New Mexico at a soldout Pit after Lamont Butler’s 3-pointer that just beat the buzzer.
This came after they trailed by 13 in the second half.
And after nearly blowing a four-point lead inside 20 seconds to go – sound familiar? – in an eerily reminiscent fashion to their overtime loss against Arkansas in the Maui Invitational in November.
The hero Saturday night, fittingly, was the goat in Maui. Butler committed an ill-advised foul, then turned it over to allow the Razorbacks to send the game to overtime.
This time, he took an inbounds pass with six seconds left, casually took six dribbles across midcourt and calmly, confidently pulled up several feet behind the 3-point arc despite a ho-hum shooting night. The officials checked the monitor to see if it beat the buzzer.
It did.
Said coach Brian Dutcher: “I wanted him to go to the rim, draw a foul or make a layup. That’s what I wanted. But players win games, not coaches. He made a play. Players make plays, and we made one more than they did.”
Butler: “I got the ball, Nate set a crack screen at half court, I was supposed to go downhill and get to the rim, but it was kind of clogged up. I lost it little bit. I looked up and saw 2 seconds on the clock and knew I had to shoot it. And it went in.”
He opened the game shooting 1 of 6 and was 3 of 10 when he pulled up over Jamal Mashburn Jr. He had missed 13 of his last 15 attempts beyond the arc.
“I was thinking all game, ‘Dang, I can’t get a shot to go in,’” Butler said. “But at the end of the game, you have to make big shots, big plays. I trusted myself. I just let it fly and it went in.”
It won a game. It won a conference.
The win at The Pit, coupled with San Jose State’s fortuitous overtime win against visiting Boise State a few hours earlier, means the Aztecs clinch at least a share of the Mountain West regular-season championship no matter what happens when the Aztecs visit Boise on Tuesday night. A win in either of SDSU’s final two games – and, remember, they host last-place Wyoming on March 4 – gets them the outright title.
Even if they finish tied atop the league, they still stand to get the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament based on tiebreakers. Boise State now joins Nevada in a tie for second place at 12-4. Utah State is fourth at 11-5.
“Now we have to go out and find a way not to share it with anybody,” said Dutcher, drenched from a locker room water bath.
Here’s how the final, dramatic minutes went:
New Mexico tied it at 64 on a pair of free throws, then got the ball back after a Matt Bradley miss. But Butler stole a pass and was fouled before he could shoot.
The Aztecs inbounded under their own basket, Darrion Trammell passing to Nathan Mensah, then wrapping around him for a handoff and a corner 3-pointer for a 67-64 advantage.
The Lobos got within one on a pair of free throws, only for SDSU to break the press, run a high ball screen and find Micah Parrish for a 3 and a 70-66 lead.
But … Mensah fouled Mashburn attempting a 3 with 16.7 left, and he made all three free throws. The Aztecs appeared to break the press, but Trammell’s pass was deflected and Jaelen House dribbled through traffic for a layup with five seconds left – 71-70, Lobos.
“If he would have just kept his dribble, we would have broken the press and they would have had to foul us,” Dutcher said. “But he threw it up, and they made a heck of a steal and shot. That’s a credit to them. I mean, you watch enough basketball today, you know what it is. One of the two teams was going to lose. Both deserved to win. But we came out on top.”
It was the second buzzer-beating loss by New Mexico at home this season – the second this month – after Nevada’s Kenan Blackshear made a jumper in the lane for a 77-76 on Feb. 7.
“It stings,” New Mexico coach Richard Pitino said. “It sucks. There’s no other way to put it.”
Butler finished with 10 points, four rebounds and two assists. Bradley added 11 points and Keshad Johnson nine.
The big revelation, though, was Trammell, who opened 1 of 8 and finished with 18 points after draining four second-half 3s – ending a slump that seemingly has lasted for weeks, even months.
And it came after a horrendous first half, when the Aztecs went from leading 8-2 at the first media timeout … to trailing by 12 late in the first half.
One problem was their own shooting, closing the half 7 of 28. The other problem was defending the 3-point line, which has been one of their strengths this season. Opponents entered the day shooting 28.7 percent against the Aztecs behind the arc. The Lobos were 6 of 10 in the first half (while the Aztecs were 1 of 7).
Most of the damage came in a 16-2 run in which the Lobos scored on seven of eight possessions while the Aztecs shot 1 of 5 with four turnovers. The killer was back-to-back 3s by KJ Jenkins.
The margin ballooned to 13 early in the second half before the Aztecs finally started making some shots. After missing three 3s in less than a minute, Trammell made one followed by a baseline jumper.
But New Mexico (20-9, 7-9) was rolling as well and kept the lead near 10 for a good 10 minutes, until it went cold and the Aztecs snuck back in the game with a 12-2 run. Aguek Arop got a pair of baskets inside, Micah Parrish scored on an inbounds plays, Trammell made a 3 on an inbounds play, Keshad Johnson was left wide open and drained a 3.
That got them their first lead since 24-21 and quieted, at least for a little while, the soldout crowd of 15,431 in one of college basketball’s loudest buildings.
“I just told them at halftime, I thought we were playing too much one-on-one,” Dutcher said. “We had some success early, so sometimes you fall into that trap. I thought we did a better job getting the ball side to side, better job screening, better halfcourt execution. And we got the stops we needed to get.”
Notable
New Mexico wore turquoise uniforms for the second time this season … Adam Seiko made a mid-range jumper in the first half, his first 2-point basket since the first meeting against New Mexico on Jan. 14, a stretch of 10 games … Keshad Johnson was whistled for a flop with 8:42 to go, but New Mexico’s Jaelen House missed the technical free throw.
