San Diego State and New Mexico are both 20-win teams from the Mountain West Conference who are sitting squarely on the NCAA Tournament bubble. So, their semifinal meeting at the MWC Tournament was, in essence, a March Madness elimination game.
These longtime rivals have done battle many times over the years. With SDSU leaving for the Pac 12 this was the last time they’d see each other for the foreseeable future so they made sure to go out with an epic.
Aztecs guard B.J. Davis, who has developed a penchant for dramatics, hit a layup with two seconds left to give San Diego State a 64-62 win and put them into the conference title game against Utah State.
Most basketball games feature both teams making runs at each other but that was especially the case on Friday night in Las Vegas. Neither team led by more than six points at any moment. With 25 seconds left Lobos guard Deyton Albury hit a layup for two of his game-high 20 points to tie the game at 62-62.
SDSU head coach Brian Dutcher decided not to call a time out, instead putting the ball and the game in the hands of his junior playmaker. Davis walked the ball up, his teammates cleared out the lane, and with nine seconds left he started his attack run, using a hesitation dribble to lose Albury and finishing at the rim for the most important bucket of his SDSU career.
Davis finished with 12 points and fellow reserve Magoon Gwath had a team-high 17 as the Aztecs bench outscored the Lobos reserves 36-13.
On Sunday afternoon the Aztecs get another look at Utah State, the regular season Mountain West champs. The winner of that game gets an automatic spot in the NCAA Tournament while the loser will have to hope they did enough to bounce themselves off the bubble and earn an at-large berth in March Madness.