San Diego State vs. Utah Preview
LAS VEGAS, NV (AP) – After claiming its second Mountain West regular-season championship, No. 7 San Diego State turns its to attention to defending the conference tournament title.
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That quest begins Thursday night as the second-seeded Aztecs try for a fifth consecutive win over a seventh-seeded Utah team that could be without its best player in Las Vegas.
San Diego State (29-2, 14-2), which transferred from the Western Athletic Conference in 1999, is coming off the best regular season in school history and earned a share of the MWC regular-season title for the first time since winning it outright in 2005-06.
Current college basketball odds and oddsmakers from online sports book Sportsbook.com have made San Diego State -16 point spread favorites for Thursday’s game against Utah. Current college basketball public betting information shows that 68% of more than 731 bets for this game have been placed on San Diego State -8
The Aztecs won the conference tournament that season and also accomplished the feat last year, a result they’re hoping to duplicate.
“Before the season we all set goals as a team, and this is something we can check off on our checklist, winning the league championship,” senior guard D.J. Gay said after Saturday’s 66-48 victory over Colorado State. “It’s been a great season. It’s been a magical one so far. But we know it’s not over yet. We take this in and enjoy the moment, but tomorrow comes and it’s on to the tournament.”
Gay is second on the team with 11.7 points per game but has averaged 8.3 over the last four games while shooting 27.3 percent, including 6 of 29 from 3-point range. He totaled eight points on 2-of-14 shooting in San Diego State’s only two losses – both to eighth-ranked BYU – but those teams wouldn’t meet again until the tournament final.
Kawhi Leonard led the Aztecs on Saturday with 17 points and 12 rebounds. The sophomore ranks fourth in the country and first in the conference with 21 double-doubles.
Leonard, who averaged 14.3 points and 13.0 rebounds during last season’s MWC tournament run, joins Gay on the 2010 all-conference first team while Utah’s Will Clyburn was voted to the second team.
Clyburn, tied for second in the conference with 17.0 points per game, is uncertain to play due to a contusion on his right heel. The junior swingman went 0 of 6 from the floor and failed to score before sitting out the second half of Saturday’s 78-58 loss to UNLV.
“We’ll see how he feels when he warms up,” said coach Jim Boylen of Clyburn, averaging a team-best 7.8 rebounds. “He wants to play and be a part of this week. He is in pain. It’s a difficult injury. The only thing that will heal this injury is time, and unfortunately at this point in the year, we don’t have time.”
San Diego State has won four straight in this series, with Leonard averaging 15.5 points and 12.3 rebounds. Gay has averaged 16.5 points in two meetings this season and helped the Aztecs hand the Utes their most lopsided defeat in the last matchup, 85-53 on Feb. 8.
Utah (13-17, 6-10) last defeated the Aztecs 52-50 in the 2009 tournament championship game.
San Diego State certainly won’t take this game lightly even though the Utes have lost seven straight to Top 25 opponents by an average of 16.4 points.
“Utah has a very proud storied program,” said Aztecs coach Steve Fisher, the 2010 MWC co-coach of the year. “We have beaten them twice this year, they will come in forgetting about all the frustrations of losing games, close games, losing this and say ‘we can win three games, we can cut nets down and we can go to the NCAA tournament.’ Trust me when I tell you, that’s the attitude they will have and so will we.”
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