Dec. 11, 2008
SAN DIEGO -
SDSU-Montana State Box Score in PDF Format
Three Aztec basketball players reached the 20-point barrier to help the team remain perfect at home, as San Diego State downed the visiting Montana State Bobcats, 85-70, Thursday evening at Cox Arena. With the win, the Aztecs improved to 6-3 on the year, while the Bobcats fell to 4-4 overall.
"This is a unique (opponent), because they average nearly 80 points a game and really spread the floor," SDSU head coach Beth Burns said. "Our strength going in was that their inside game wasn't as strong as our inside game. We also felt we had some good perimeter speed, that if we turned them over, we wanted to score fast. If we didn't turn them over in our half-court set, we really wanted to get Paris (Johnson) and J-Lay (Jennifer Layton-Bailes) touches early to make them double-team and have to counter. We did a really good job sharing the ball tonight with 24 assists."
Aztec sophomore center Paris Johnson (San Diego, Calif.) had the best all-around game of her career, posting a game-high 22 points to go with 13 rebounds, six assists, five blocks and three steals in 35 minutes for her fourth double-double of the season. Johnson's six assists were a career-best, while her 13 rebounds and three steals matched a career-high.
Johnson was helped offensively by Quenese Davis' (Sacramento, Calif.) 20 points and Jennifer Layton-Bailes' (Sacramento, Calif.) 20 points, which matched her career-best. Davis also had six assists and junior Jené Morris (San Francisco, Calif.) and sophomore Jerica Williams (San Diego, Calif.) each had four of the team's season-high 16 steals.
SDSU never trailed in the game, coming out of the gate on a 9-0 run off back-to-back baskets by Johnson, a jumper by Davis and a three-pointer from Layton-Bailes. The Bobcats scored their first points of the game at the 16:34 mark on a three-point field goal by Nubia Garcia. San Diego State's lead grew to double-figures on a Layton-Bailes jumper at 15-5, but MSU put up a scoring run of its own, tallying nine straight to get back to within one.
Williams, who along with Layton-Bailes hit her first four shots of the game, stopped the Bobcat run with the first of three straight three-pointers over a span of just a little over a minute and a half to go back up by nine. The Aztecs continued to make plays, increasing their advantage to as many as 24 points, before heading into the locker room up 21 at 48-27, their highest first-half scoring output of the season.
Coming out of the break, Montana State began to get hot offensively, cutting the Aztec lead down to just 12 points on two occasions behind nearly 60 percent shooting from the field. The Bobcats never got any closer, though, as the Aztecs pushed their lead to 18 with 6:44 left and went on to win by 15 points, 85-70, to improve to 3-0 at home this season.
SDSU had a season-best 24 assists and its 85 points were also a season-high after scoring 71 against both Hawai'i and No. 25 Iowa State last month.
The Bobcats were led by Garcia's 20 points and nine rebounds, while Jenny Heringer had 19 points on 6-for-8 shooting.
The Aztecs take a break for final exams, as SDSU continues its month-long homestand a week from Sunday, when Loyola Marymount comes to town Dec. 21 for a 1 p.m. tip-off at Cox Arena. Live audio, video and stats will be available on SDSU's official website, www.goaztecs.com.