Dec. 22, 2016
HONOLULU -
SDSU Men's Basketball Game Notes | SDSU Broadcast Flip Card
NEWS AND NOTES
* San Diego State will play its second game in less than 24 hours when it returns to Stan Sheriff Center to face Tulsa in the semifinals of the 2016 Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic on Friday. Game time is set for 11:30 a.m. HT (1:30 p.m. PT) and it will air nationally on ESPN2 and worldwide on WatchESPN. The Mighty 1090 will have the game on radio in Southern California.
* The Aztecs, who played a 2 p.m. HT game on Thursday, is coming off a 66-51 victory over Southern Miss in the opening round of the tournament. Zylan Cheatham led SDSU with game highs of 16 points and a career-high 13 rebounds, while adding three assists. Trey Kell added 11 points and a game-high five assists. Between the pair, it was responsible for eight of San Diego State's 10 assists.
* SDSU also received six or more points from four other players to help it record the 15-point win. Malik Pope and Jeremy Hemsley each scored nine points with the former matching his career high with three blocked shots. Dakarai Allen had seven points and Matt Shrigley made two of the Aztecs' seven treys to end with six points.
* As a team, SDSU shot 44 percent from the field, which improved the Aztecs' record to 24-1 the last 25 times they have shot at least that well from the floor. Since the start of the 2010-11 season, San Diego State is 100-6 when shooting at least 44 percent from the field.
* On the other side of the ball, San Diego State put together its second straight strong defensive effort. The Aztecs, who held Alabama State to 25 percent shooting their last time out, returned to the floor to limit the Golden Eagles to 33.3 percent, including 27.6 percent in the first 20 minutes. Additionally, SDSU did not send Southern Miss to the free-throw line very often. The Golden Eagles were just 5-for-6 from the charity stripe. Conversely, the Aztecs tied their season best with a 15-for-18 performance from the line (.833).
* With the win, San Diego State finds itself in the semifinals of an in-season tournament-style event for the fifth straight time, a streak that dates back to the 2008-09 campaign. The Aztecs are 11-2 in those games.
* San Diego State will look to improve upon the aforementioned 11-2 mark with not much time to prepare. The lack of time appears to never faze the program, however, since it is 16-2 in its last 18 regular-season games when it has less than 24 hours to prep for an opponent.
* If the Aztecs are successful in game-planning for Tulsa with not much time to do it, they will find themselves in the championship game of an in-season tournament-style event for the fifth straight time, including 2012's appearance in the Diamond Head Classic title game. A spot in the championship game would give head coach Steve Fisher an opportunity to win the event for the second time. He and his 1992 Michigan team won what was then called the Rainbow Classic.
* The Aztecs are facing a Tulsa team that defeated Stephen F. Austin, 74-51, on Thursday in a game that started at 11:30 a.m. HT. The Golden Hurricane shot 50 percent from the floor and was 11-for-21 from three-point distance (.524).
* San Diego State is meeting its one-time league mate for the first time since the 1997-98 season when the schools were in the Western Athletic Conference. That year, the Golden Hurricane swept the season series with the last get-together coming inside what was then called Cox Arena, 65-60.
* The Aztecs trail the all-time series with Tulsa, 6-1, and have not defeated the Golden Hurricane since a 59-57 decision in Tulsa on Dec. 19 ,1966. The schools met once in a neutral-site game, a 67-59 Tulsa win in Tempe, Ariz.