SAN DIEGO – With the regular season wrapped up and the 2020 Air Force Reserve Mountain West Championship Tournament beginning later this week, award season is in full swing. And for the second day in a row, members of the San Diego State men's basketball team have been honored for their play. Four players and head coach Brian Dutcher have been included in the Mountain West's postseason awards which are based on the conference's 18-game schedule and are voted on by the leagues 11 head coaches.
Junior guard Malachi Flynn was named the Mountain West Player of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and is a first-team All-Mountain West selection. Junior forward Matt Mitchell was also selected as a first-team performer, senior forward Yanni Wetzell is a second-team All-Mountain West designee and senior guard KJ Feagin is an honorable mention performer. In addition, Flynn and Feagin have been named to the All-Defensive Team and head coach Brian Dutcher is the Mountain West's Coach of the Year for the 2019-20 season.
A native of Tacoma, Wash., Flynn finished the regular season averaging 17.6 points, 5.1 assists and 4.4 rebounds while shooting 44.7 percent from the floor, 37.2 percent from long range and 85.7 percent from the line. In league games, he was even more impressive. His scoring average went up to 18.9 points on 45.3 percent shooting including 34.7 percent from distance and 91.7 percent from the charity stripe. Earning starting assignments in all 29 games this season, the junior scored in double figures 28 times, led the team the team in scoring and in assists 19 times.
In the team's regular season finale, an 83-76 win at Nevada, Flynn poured in 36 points which are the most by an Aztec player since Brandon Heath tallied 37 against UNLV on Jan. 15, 2005 and he is just the eighth player in college basketball this season to produce a stat line of 36 points, five rebounds and five assists and the first from a Mountain West Conference team. His 36 points are the second most by an Aztec player this century. For his efforts last week, Flynn earned his second Mountain West Player of the Week honor this season. In addition, he is a Sporting News Midseason second-team All-American, as well as on the watch lists for the Bob Cousy Point Guard of the Year, Lute Olson National Player of the Year and John R. Wooden Award. He was named the tournament MVP of both the Continental Tires Las Vegas Invitational and the Basketball Hall of Fame Classic. This is the second MW Player of the Year recognition in as many days for Flynn, who picked up the same award yesterday from the media who regularly cover the conference.
Third-year head coach Brian Dutcher has led the 2019-20 Aztecs to the best regular-season record in program history (28-1) and the No. 1 seed in next week's Mountain West Tournament. With 17 league victories, San Diego State set a school and Mountain West Conference record for most conference victories in a campaign. San Diego State's 17-1 conference record is the highest winning percentage ever for a Mountain West Conference team, eclipsing Utah's 13-1 mark in 2004-05. Under his guidance, SDSU was the last unbeaten team in the nation for more than a month from Jan. 15 to Feb. 22 and is currently the last one-loss team in the NCAA.
The Aztecs were the first team to clinch its conference's regular-season title and is the first to do so with four games remaining in the season since the 2007-08 Davidson team of Steph Curry. In addition, the squad is a perfect 14-0 in road/neutral games this year and is the only team without a loss in a road/neutral game this season and are 10-0 in NET Quadrant 1 and Quadrant 2 games. Remarkably, nine of those 10 games came either on the road or on a neutral court. Dutcher was also named the Mountain West Coach of the Year by the league's media members yesterday.
Mitchell earned his all-conference accolades after averaging 13.8 points on 50.3 percent shooting, 41.2 percent from three-point range and 89.4 percent from the line in league play. He grabbed 5.6 rebounds and dished out 1.6 assists. For the season his numbers were equally impressive. He scored 12.4 points pulled down 4.8 assists and assisted on 1.7 buckets per contest. Coming off the bench in the first 13 games he averaged 10.8 points, 4.3 rebounds and 1.5 assists. Since being inserted in the starting line-up he is scoring 13.6 points, grabbing 5.2 rebounds, and dishing out 1.8 assists. His field goal shooting is up to 51.1 percent from 43.8; three-point shooting is at 41.1 percent compared to 37.5 percent in the first 13 games and his free throw shooting is up nine points (from 81.0-to-90.0). With 22 points against New Mexico, he became the 34th player in SDSU history to reach 1,000-career points.
The Riverside, Calif., native reached double digit point totals in 13-of-18 conference games, including a season-high 28 points, 24 of which came in the second half, against Utah State where he went 9-of-14 from the floor including 4-of-6 from beyond the arc. Yesterday he was named a second-team performer by the league's media members.
Wetzell, a grad transfer originally from Auckland, New Zealand, is a two-time Mountain West Player of the Week and a member of the Continental Tires Las Vegas Invitational All-Tournament Team. After averaging 5.9 points, 3.8 rebounds and 0.3 assists last season at Vanderbilt, Wetzell has blossomed at San Diego State. He is averaging 11.6 points, 6.4 rebounds and 1.4 assists. His 59.8 percent field goal percentage is the sixth best in Aztec single-season history. He has reached double digit scoring in 18-of-29 game this year compared to 9-of-32 last season. He's led the team in rebounds 12 times, scoring three times and assists twice. At San Diego he established career-highs in points (20) and at that time rebounds (12). In the game he was 9-of-11 from the field and hit the first three pointer of the season. He has shot 50 percent or better in 23-of-29 games this year. At Wyoming he was a perfect 7-of-7 from the floor, including 3-of-3 from long range, and became the fourth player in the Brian Dutcher/Steve Fisher era to make at least seven field goals without a miss in a game. The league's media bestowed third-team honors on Wetzell yesterday.
Feagin, a graduate transfer from Santa Clara, was an elite scorer as a Bronco, but has made defense his focus this season. In large part due to his efforts, San Diego State leads the Mountain West in most defensive categories, including scoring defense (58.6), field goal percentage defense (38.0), three-point field goal percentage defense (28.3), defensive efficiency.
According to Synergy, in the 231 possessions in which the player he is guarding has ended the possession, he has allowed just 54-of-194 field goal shooting (27.8 percent), and 0.632 points per possession. Among players with at least 225 defensive possessions, his defensive field goal percentage is second nationally. He averaged 9.3 points, 3.3 rebounds and 2.6 assists in league play, but in four of the last eight games has scored 14 of more points and in his last eight contests is averaging 11.9 points, 2.6 rebounds and 2.8 assists. In that time period his shot 43.7 percent from the floor, including 44.6 percent from the bonus distance and has 24 treys. Feagin was also an honorable mention selection by the Mountain West media yesterday.
San Diego State returns to action on Thursday as the No. 1 seed at the Mountain West Championship Tournament in Las Vegas, Nev. The Aztecs will face the winner of the matchup between eighth-seed Fresno State and ninth-seed Air Force. The game tips at 11:30 a.m. PT at UNLV's Thomas & Mack Center.
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