Jan. 28, 2005
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Off to its best league start in eight seasons, San Diego State (9-8; 3-1 Mountain West Conference), winners of four of its last five games, travels to Colorado Springs, Colo., to battle defending Mountain West Conference regular season champions Air Force (12-7; 3-1 MWC) on Saturday afternoon at Clune Arena. The winner earns sole possession of second place in the MWC.
Game time is set for 4 p.m. MST (3 p.m. PST) and the contest will be shown in southern California on Channel 4 San Diego (satellite coordinates: AMC 09 (Ku), Transponder 17).
The Aztecs are looking for their third consecutive road victory - all coming in league play, which is something no SDSU team has accomplished since the 1977-78 Pacific Coast Athletic Association champions won three consecutive conference road games. That was the last Aztec squad to claim a regular season conference championship. The task is made even more difficult as Air Force owns the nation's second longest active homecourt winning streak at 22 games, trailing only Oklahoma State (25).
San Diego State bounced back from a Saturday loss to Wyoming with an impressive 84-77 victory over Colorado State on Monday. The Aztecs, which led wire-to-wire in a conference game for the first time since March 1, 2003, built a 19-point second half advantage before settling for the seven-point win.
Senior forward Chris Walton scored a career high 23 points on 10-of-11 field goal shooting. It marked the third time in the last four games Walton has produced double-figure scoring games. Sophomore guard Brandon Heath added 15 points, a game-high seven assists and a team-high five rebounds. Sophomore forward Marcus Slaughter reached double figures for the 17th straight game and scored 15 or more points for the 13th straight outing with 18 points.
The Aztecs shot 52.8 percent from the field, their best shooting performance in 12 games, and committed a season-low seven turnovers against the Rams. Air Force, which posted a 22-7 overall record and a 12-2 league mark last season, has won six of its last eight games. The Falcons have not lost a game at home since a 57-52 loss to Utah on March 3, 2003. Since that time, Air Force has won 22 straight at Clune Arena and this season the Falcons have won their eight home games by an average of 18.0 points. Air Force is led by 2003 co-Mountain West Conference player of the year junior center Nick Welch (12.6 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 2.7 apg, 44.4 3FG pct.) and junior guard Antoine Hood (12.5 ppg, 3.2 rpg, 1.7 apg).
The Aztecs enter Saturday's game above .500 in league play after four games, marking the latest in a conference season SDSU has been above the break-even mark since a 3-2 mark during the 1997 WAC season.