SAN DIEGO – The San Diego State men's basketball team conducted a closed scrimmage against the Pt. Loma Nazarene Sea Lions on Saturday afternoon and emerged on the positive end of a 76-55 score.
Per NCAA regulations, the scrimmage was conducted in front of only those personnel directly associated with the programs. No media or fans were permitted to attend or watch, and no publicity was allowed ahead of the scrimmage.
"This was just what you would think you would see from a first scrimmage," head men's basketball coach Brian Dutcher said afterward. "There were some good moments, some bad moments and some that were in between. We turned the ball over too much, especially down the stretch. I thought when we got tired, late in the game, we picked up the majority of our turnovers. Even though we were up, we tried to force to many things and that led to turnovers."
In total the Aztecs committed 19 turnovers, but those miscues led to only eight PLNU points compared to SDSU forcing 11 turnovers and scoring 11 points off them.
"We are very talented offensively," Dutcher said. "We have a lot of guys who can score the ball. Obviously, we need to take care of it better. In the first half we were essentially platooning our lineups, where we sub in five at a time. When we were doing that Yanni (Wetzell) was at the four and then in the second half I wanted to see him play some center. I wanted to go small at the end and we put Jordan (Schakel) at the power forward. I wanted to mix things up, so our guys had to play out of position, something they haven't been practicing a whole lot. We changed up our lineups in the second half and I was happy with what I saw."
All 10 San Diego State players, who saw the floor, ended up in the scoring column led by three who finished in double figures. Malachi Flynn led all scorers with 15 points on 7-of-9 shooting, grabbed a couple of rebounds and had one assist. Matt Mitchell totaled 14 points, including 4-of-5 from beyond the arc, and KJ Feagin added 10 points (4-of-6 FG) including a pair of threes.
Nathan Mensah had a game-high 11 rebounds and scored eight points. Jordan Schakel led the team with four assists, and had three rebounds and seven points. The rebound margin favored the Aztecs 45-to-28, but the Sea Lions held a slight advantage on the offensive glass, 11-to-9.
For the scrimmage, SDSU shot 53.8 percent (28-of-52) including 42.9 percent from three-point range (9-of-21) and knocked down 11-of-15 free throws (73.3 percent).
Pt. Loma was limited to 33.9 percent shooting (21-of-62), made just 7-of-27 threes and was 6-of-17 (35.3 percent) from the line.
"Pt. Loma has a nice team, and this was as good a scrimmage as we have had, as far as exposing things we need to work on," Dutcher added. "They did an outstanding job of making us play the right way in order to be successful. We weren't rewarded for poor play and when we played poorly, they made us pay for it. It was a good learning experience and it's something to build upon. We are ready to get back to work on Monday."
San Diego State opens the 2019-20 season with an exhibition on Wednesday, Oct. 30 against UC San Diego in Viejas Arena. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m.
Single-game and season tickets for the 2019-20 home schedule are on sale now. Season Ticket packages start as low as $199 and fans interested in purchasing season or single-game tickets can do so at goaztecs.com, by calling the Aztec Ticket Office at (619) 283-7378 or by visiting the Aztec Ticket Office at Window E at SDCCU Stadium.
The Aztecs return six of their top nine scorers off a team that posted a 21-13 record and advanced to the championship game of the Mountain West Conference tournament in 2019. San Diego State is one of just nine schools nationally to win at least 19 games each of the last 14 seasons and is one of 29 schools to play in seven of the last 10 NCAA tournaments.
M. Hoops Scrimmages Pt. Loma Nazarene In Viejas
