LA JOLLA, CALIF. - Four Aztecs reached double figures highlighted by double-doubles from Micah Parrish and Jaedon LeDee as San Diego State beat UC San Diego at the buzzer 63-62 on Friday night in LionTree Arena in La Jolla, California.
LeDee had a layup with 38 seconds left to play to pull the Aztecs (7-1) within 62-61. Bryce Pope missed a 3-pointer with 10 seconds to go and LeDee grabbed the rebound. Lamont Butler misfired from beyond the arc at the other end with two seconds remaining, but LeDee was there to grab the miss and score the winning basket.
Parrish topped San Diego State with 15 points and 10 rebounds. LeDee and Elijah Saunders scored 13 apiece with LeDee adding 10 boards. Butler scored 10 with five assists.
Francis Nwaokorie, Hayden Gray and Pope all finished with 15 points for the Tritons (4-4). Gray added five assists.
Prior to LeDee's game winner, San Diego State only led for 28 seconds at the beginning of the second half. With 7:36 remaining in the game, the Aztecs trailed 57-43 following a 10-0 Triton run. The Aztecs did not lose faith, going on a 13-0 run to bring the score to 57-56 with just over two minutes to go.
"We've got to weather the storm." Parrish said on the team's attitude when they trailed by 14. "We knew they were going to come in here and play hard. They had a great environment tonight. They have a great team. We knew we had to come in and step it up. We knew that we had to get stops and rely on defense getting stops and getting stops. We got three stops in a row at the end of the game. We knew we were going to go down and score. We just needed to get stops."
The Scarlet and Black outshot UC San Diego 41.3 percent (26-of-63) to 39.7 percent (23-of-58) from the field and 38.1 percent (8-of-21) to 34.5 percent (10-of-29) from beyond the arc. The biggest Aztec advantage came in rebounds, where SDSU led by a 43-28 margin overall and 14-5 on the offensive glass.
San Diego State faces a tough road test in its next matchup, when it travels to Phoenix to face the Grand Canyon Antelopes at 7 p.m. MT on Tuesday night. The game will be broadcast by ESPNU on television and San Diego Sports 760 on radio.