Jan. 5, 2002
SAN DIEGO - The San Diego State women's basketball team is right where it wants to be with Mountain West Conference action starting next week - hitting its stride.
SDSU struggled to find any semblance of cohesion during the first month of the season. The sum of its parts was definitely greater than the whole.
What a difference a month makes.
On the cusp of the 2001-02 Mountain West season, the Aztecs are starting to do the things good team do. Shot well. Defend hard. Put opponents away.
Jamey Cox scored 16 points and dished out seven assists and Claire Swinbank added 15 and also had seven assists as San Diego State recorded its third straight convincing win Saturday night at Cox Arena, routing visiting Portland State, 73-51, in front of 731.
Atim Otii scored in double digits for the 10th time this season, finishing with 10 points, and Valencia Howard grabbed a career-high 11 rebounds for San Diego State (8-5), which closed out its pre-conference schedule with an 8-5 record, including wins in five of final six games.
Yes, the Aztecs are on a roll. And a lot of it has to do win a good dose of new-found chemistry.
"It's nice to see that this group is finally learning to play together," said SDSU head coach Barb Smith following the team's sixth home win of the season. "We've spent a lot of time together now and the players know each other now, which has really improved our overall cohesiveness."
And the Aztecs were working as one from the get-go Saturday night against Portland State (6-8, 0-1 Big Sky).
San Diego State led the entire first half and began pulling away in the final five minutes.
Swinbank finished her third straight opening period in double-figures and scored seven of her 13 first-half points in the closing minutes as the Aztecs ended the first stanza with a 15-2 run to take a 37-19 lead at intermission.
An 8-2 SDSU spurt coming out of the locker room put the Aztecs up by 24. The Aztecs' lead would grow to as much as 32 with seven minutes to play before Portland State, which was held to just 38 percent shooting, including 24 percent in the first half, began to show some signs of life.
Still, the Vikings, who became the seventh Aztec opponent to be held under 60 points this season, could only get as close as 20 points as SDSU, which shot over 50 percent from the floor for the second time in the last three games, snuffed out a late PSU run to keep the rout intact.
"(Holding an opponent under 60 points) has been the key stat for us," Smith acknowledged. "We've been able to practice twice a day this week with the players out of school, and it has really helped to solidify parts of our defense that were hurting earlier in the year. The kids worked extremely hard this week and it paid off tonight."
That work was evident in a number of areas. The Aztecs won the battle of the boards for the fourth straight game, out-rebounding the Vikings, 36-31. SDSU also did a good job of taking care of the ball, committing just 16 turnovers to 20 by PSU.
"I think we made a very important statement with this win tonight," said SDSU head coach Barb Smith. "We wanted to make a statement that we were ready to go into conference play. It's going to be tough going because our league is so strong and our first three games are on the road. But this (win) was good for us because we have some momentum coming out of the non-conference portion of our schedule."
San Diego State opens Mountain West Conference play Saturday, Jan. 12, when the Aztecs travel to Las Vegas to meet red hot UNLV. The game, which tips at 7:35, has been moved out of the brand new Cox Pavilion and will be played in the Thomas & Mack Center due to a conflict with the facility.