March 8, 2002
BERNIE WILSON
AP Sports Writer
SAN DIEGO (AP) - The San Diego State Aztecs will know by this weekend just how big their turnaround has been under coach Steve Fisher.
If the Aztecs (18 (11)- can win three games in the Mountain West Conference tournament in Las Vegas, they'll earn the league's automatic NCAA tournament berth.
If not, they're confident they'll be invited to the NIT. They've even bid on being home for a first-round game.
Regardless of the acronym, a postseason tournament bid would be San Diego State's first in 17 seasons. In their third season under Fisher, the Aztecs have posted their highest win total since reaching the NCAAs in 1985 and finishing 23-8.
Last fall, Fisher said he'd be disappointed if the Aztecs didn't go to a postseason tournament. The players, of course, want to go to THE tournament.
"We're going to Vegas expecting to win," said guard Tony Bland, who transferred to SDSU after playing for the Syracuse team that reached the NCAA regionals in 2000. "We want to go to the NCAA tournament. It would be great to go to the NIT, but the NCAA tournament is what everyone's been fighting for since the beginning."
San Diego State, the No. 5 seed, opens tournament play Thursday against No. 4 Brigham Young.
The Aztecs are confident because they've won five of six games. Forward Randy Holcomb thinks they're playing the best of any team in the conference right now.
"I just really believe that nobody in this league will be able to beat us," said Holcomb, who led the conference with a 9.3 rebounding average and was second with a 17.2 scoring average. "We're hungry. We have absolutely nothing to lose. A lot of teams should be afraid to play us because we're the only team who hasn't shown everything we can do.
"I just think that we're a very, very good team," Holcomb said. "We're the most talented team in this league, I'll say that much."
But he also knows there's no margin of error.
"We just can't lose a ballgame right now if we want to play in the NCAA tournament."
SDSU and Brigham Young tied for fourth at 7-7, but BYU earned the No. 4 seed by virtue of a tiebreaker. The Aztecs beat BYU 77-73 at home on Feb. 11, and they like the fact that the Cougars are 2-10 away from Provo, although BYU did beat Stanford in Las Vegas on Dec. 22.
The Aztecs had their share of letdowns early in league play and are still kicking themselves for three overtime losses, two to UNLV and one at home to regular-season champion Wyoming. San Diego State beat Wyoming 68-64 at Laramie on Feb. 18.
"We're doing pretty good," Fisher said. "I would like to have those three overtime losses in the bank for wins, and we'd be saying, `Hey, we're going to the NCAAs, for sure, win or lose.' We're that close to being in that upper tier this season. And yet, we're a long way from year one."
The Aztecs were 5-23 in Fisher's first season, 1999-2000, going 0-14 in the league and 0-13 on the road.
Fisher coached Michigan into three Final Fours, winning the national championship in 1989 and reaching the title game in 1992 and 1993.
If the Aztecs end up in the NIT, Fisher can work on extending his winning streak in that tournament. Michigan won the NIT in 1997.
The following October, Fisher was fired by the Wolverines after an investigation into his role in arranging complimentary tickets for a booster.
SDSU has been to the NCAAs three times and the NIT once, going a combined 0-4.