Aztecs survive

San Diego State found itself locked in a battle, but was able to advance to the semifinals of the Mountain West Conference men’s basketball tournament with a 72-71 victory over Colorado State at the Thomas & Mack Center.
D.J. Gay hit a pair of free throws with 23 seconds left to give the Aztecs the lead.
“I was pretty confident going to the line. You can’t second-guess yourself. I’ve been there before,” Gay said.
Dorian Green threw away a pass for Colorado State, but the Rams still got another chance.
Chase Tapley missed the front end of a 1-and-1 and Colorado State pulled down the rebound. The Rams didn’t call a timeout, however, and Travis Busch was forced to throw up a desperation 3-pointer that did not come close.
San Diego State led by as many as 10 points early in the second half, but Colorado State kept battling back.
The Rams even built a 4-point lead late in the game, but could not pull the upset. They were playing without leading scorer and rebounded Andy Ogide, who was ejected for an elbow he threw at Brian Carlwell in the first half.
Malcolm Thomas, Billy White and Chase Tapley each had 15 points for San Diego State. Thomas added seven rebounds and four assists.
Nigon went 4-for-7 from the 3-point line and had 18 points to lead the Rams. Colorado State made 8 of 15 as a team from long range.
“Of the eight shots they made from out there, seven of them could not have been defended any better,” San Diego State coach Steve Fisher said. “They made some very contested shots.”
Fisher sounded relieved to have advanced in the tournament.
“I told Tim Miles after the game that we got lucky. ‘Your team deserved to win,’” he said. “Our team didn’t deserve to lose, but that team deserved to win today. They played so hard.”
Dorian Green had 12 points and four assists for the Rams, and Travis Franklin added nine points and seven assists.
The Rams committed 17 turnovers, but did score 18 points off 16 offensive rebounds.

Miscommunication

Dorian Green committed a costly turnover
I saw Travis Franklin and I thought he was going to cut,” Green said. “But he stopped because he thought that I was going to shoot it.”
Green lamented the fact that he didn’t take it himself.
“I should have probably shot it. That one’s going to eat at me for quite a while,“ he said. “I should have shot it. I had lost a little bit of confidence in my mid-range game. That’s something I definitely have to work on in the offseason.”

Scare tactic

San Diego State‘s Tim Shelton is out with yet another knee injury.
He is out for the year, but did dress for today‘s game.
Steve Fisher said it was just for show.
“He wanted us to put him in with about three seconds to go in the first half to make it look like he could play to scare New Mexico a bit,” Fisher said. “But, no, Tim’s not going to play.”
Fisher said Shelton asked if he could dress and the team obliged, but there is no chance he will play again this season.

Strike up the band

The Colorado State band leader is an absolute lunatic.
He dances and gyrates throughout the song each time he is conducting.
During the final media timeout, he went particularly crazy.
As the band played Green Day’s “Holiday,” this guy danced like he was in a nightclub being fed shots by Ben Rothlisberger.
Then he jumped down from his perch above the court and went Napoleon Dynamite at the school assembly.
He had the crowd worked into an absolute frenzy.
There’s probably a statue to this guy outside Moby Arena in Fort Collins.

Up next

The arena will be cleared out for a bit of an intermission before the night session begins.
BYU, the No. 2 seed in the tournament, will take on seventh-seeded TCU at 6 p.m.
The Cougars won by 30 points in Fort Worth to close the regular season.
UNLV will play the late game against Utah.