SAN DIEGO - Matt Mitchell had 20 points and Trey Pulliam made a runner at the buzzer to help San Diego State narrowly beat Nevada 69-67 on Saturday night.
Mitchell made all 11 of his foul shots. He added eight rebounds. Nathan Mensah had 15 points and Pulliam finished with seven for San Diego State (9-2, 3-1 Mountain West Conference).
Nevada's Grant Sherfield, who finished with 20 points and nine assists, hit a deep contested 3-pointer to make it 67-all with 4.6 seconds to play. Pulliam took the in-bound pass, raced down court to the left block and kissed a running floater off the backboard and in as time expired.
Jordan Schakel, the Aztecs' second-leading scorer heading into the contest at 14 points per game, shot only 20 percent for the game (2 of 10).
Desmond Cambridge Jr. added 17 points and K.J. Hymes had 14 points for the Wolf Pack (8-5, 3-3).
The Aztecs improve to 2-0 against the Wolf Pack for the season. San Diego State defeated Nevada 65-60 last Thursday.
BIG PICTURE
San Diego State: Wins its third consecutive Mountain West Conference game and sets up an early season showdown at Utah State (9-3 overall' 6-0 Mountain West) on Thursday and Saturday.
Nevada: Played two very good games at Viejas Arena this week but came a way with a pair of narrow losses (65-60 on Thursday and 69-67 on Saturday). The Wolf Pack has now lost nine consecutive games at San Diego State dating back to Nov. 14, 1998.
THEY SAID IT
"I just know I had four seconds on the clock. Coach is always talking to us about how many dribbles you can have in the amount of time you have (left), so I had four seconds and four dribbles. I just tried to get it down and get it up on the rim. I knew if I missed, Nate (Mensah) or Matt (Mitchell) would come to try and clean it up, so I just tried to get a shot off." - SDSU senior guard Trey Pulliam.
"To be honest with you, I was trying to take a timeout. Basketball is a game of momentum and sometimes, you can draw something up and it's not as good as what you got (in the moment). I do not mind taking it out and just going up the floor. We have done that for years, dating back to DJ Gay and the Colorado State game [Feb. 2, 2011]. (With) the current state of the game, (it is about) just trusting in your players. I had no problem, they got it out. I just wanted to make sure we attacked to the basket. and Trey did. He attacked hard to the basket and he made a really a clutch game-winning shot to get us a victory tonight." - SDSU head coach Brian Dutcher.
UP NEXT
San Diego State travels to Logan to face Mountain West co-leader Utah State on Thursday.
Nevada: Returns to Reno to host Fresno State on Friday.