Jan. 31, 2002
PROVO, Utah - San Diego State brought two guns to Brigham Young Thursday night but it wasn't nearly enough.
Atim Otii and Claire Swinbank added each scored 12 points, but the rest of the Aztecs combined for just 17 as SDSU suffered a 67-41 loss in front of 1,403 at the Marriott Center.
"Defensively we had it going tonight," said SDSU head coach Barb Smith. "But offensively we couldn't buy a basket, especially when we needed one."
San Diego State (9-10, 1-5 MWC) flat out played good enough defense to win, holding the nation's leading 3-point shooting team and the Mountain West's highest scoring offense to just 3-for-14 from beyond the arc, 36 percent shooting and its fifth lowest point total of the season.
But the Aztecs' offensive woes continued as San Diego State scored a season-low 41 points on a season-worst 25 percent shooting.
"Down the stretch we just couldn't score," said Smith after the Aztecs went without a field goal over the final 10 minutes of the game. "We had a lot of players take shots and not hit and that just kills your morale. We've got to have some other people step up other than Atim (Otii) and Claire (Swinbank)."
SDSU trailed by just 11 points with 14 minutes to play in the contest and looked as if it was going make a game of it down the stretch. But just like that, the Aztecs went ice cold from the field, managing a lone Swinbank jumper over the next 10 minutes as BYU (13-6, 4-2 MWC) used a 20-2 run to take total control of the game and a 63-34 lead.
Jennifer Lietner and Erin Thorn each scored 11 points to led a balanced BYU score sheet that saw 10 Cougars break into the scoring column. Lietner also gathered 12 rebounds, leading BYU to a 50-38 advantage on the glass and collecting her sixth double-double of the season.
The first half was a sloppy affair with the two teams combining for 22 turnovers - 12 by the Aztecs - and shooting a combined 37 percent from the field.
The Aztecs, who have struggled in the early going recently, made just one of their first seven shots and trailed by seven points midway through the half before rallying behind a jumper from Swinbank and consecutive lay-ups by Otii to cut BYU's lead to just two with six minutes to go in the half.
SDSU had a chance to tie the game on its next possession but miss-fired from the field, leaving the door open for the Cougars, who scored 11 of the period's next 14 points, capped by a Stacy Jensen 3-pointer, to take their first double-digit lead.
An Ashonda Williams trey pulled the Aztecs back within seven, but BYU scored the period's final four points to take a 32-21 lead into the lockerrrom.
San Diego State closes out its two-game swing through the Beehive State Saturday at Utah. Tip-off is scheduled for 3 p.m. (MST)/2 p.m. (PST) and can be heard live over the Internet at www.goaztecs.com.