LAS VEGAS - Chad Baker and Adam Seiko scored 11 points apiece to propel San Diego State to a 53-46 victory over Fresno State in the quarterfinals of the 2022 Air Force Reserve Mountain West Conference Men's Basketball Championship on Thursday night.
"If you like late night basketball and defense, this was your game,"Aztecs head coach Brian Dutcher said. "It was a struggle to score. And I thought we pressed too hard in the first half, trying to score on the first side of the floor. Obviously, we know Justin Hutson is a great defensive coach. He's the one that set our defense at San Diego State as an assistant. So we know every time we play him what it's going to be like. I thought we got a little better movement in the second half offensively. Opened some things up. Honestly, we play high level defense. I thought the job Nathan Mensah and Aguek Arop did on Orlando was about as good as you can do, because he still scores, even if you play good defense. And we got it out, a hard-fought victory and excited to have an opportunity to play again tomorrow night."
Trey Pulliam added 10 points for the third-seeded Aztecs (22-7), and Nathan Mensah had five blocked shots to go with six points.
San Diego State, trailing 23-20 at the break, came back from a halftime deficit to win a game this season for the second time.
The Aztecs limited the Bulldogs to 38.8 percent shooting in the game marking the seventh straight contest SDSU has held its opponent to less than 40.0 percent from the floor and the 20th time in 29 games this season.
Fresno State assumed the lead with 7:24 to go before intermission and held for the next 20:04 before a Baker-Mazara layup with 7:40 to play gave SDSU the lead back at 39-37.
After Orlando Robinson, who had 25 points and 11 rebounds for the sixth-seeded Bulldogs (19-13), hit a jumper to tie it at 39-39, Baker-Mazara drained a three to push the Aztecs advantage to three, 42-39.
Fresno State got as close as two points, 45-43 with 1:44 to play, but the Aztecs went 6-of-6 from the line and got a layup from Mensah to pull away in the 1:18 for the 53-46 victory.
The win is the seventh straight for SDSU against Fresno State and its third this season.
In addition, San Diego State won its 40th game in Thomas & Mack Center since the start of 2008-09, which is the most victories by any team in the nation in a venue in which it has not played a home game.
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