Wooden Legacy post-game notes & quotes, San Diego State 89, Sacramento State 52
Wooden Chips
• Sacramento State was held to just 14 points in the first half, setting a new Wooden Legacy record for fewest points in any half… in 2012 Rice tallied 17 points in the second half, while in 2013 Cal State Fullerton logged 17 points in the first half.
• Each team had 11 players make at least one FG tonight.
• Thursday’s daily attendance was 2,131.
San Diego State (4-1)
• Playing in its fourth ESPN event (9-1 record in those).
• SDSU has held four of five opponents under 40% FG this year.
• The closest game this year is 22 points for the Aztecs (in a loss), who now have wins by 39, 37, 31 and 31 points.
• The four wins by at least 30 points equals San Diego State’s combined total over the past two seasons.
• San Diego State was +24 on the glass tonight (50-26), its biggest margin since a +27 game vs. Wyoming on 12/30/15.
• Jalen McDaniels had a total of 12 rebounds in his first four college games, then grabbed a game-high 13 rebounds tonight.
Sacramento State (1-4)
• Playing in its first ESPN event (0-1 record in those).
• The 37-point loss ties for the Hornet’s worst loss since also losing by 37 at Colorado on 11/11/16.
• Since defeating UC Davis 51-50 early in the 1995-96 season, the Hornets are just 1-67 when scoring 52 or fewer points, with the win coming on 2/23/13 at Montana.
• Sacramento State was 0-13 3pt-FG in the first half, but in the second half shot 6-10 3pt-FGs.
• Justin Strings extended his streak of scoring in double figures to 25 straight games with his 10 points tonight.
• Sacramento State shot 8-18 FT (.444) tonight, barely surpassing the all-time tournament low of .429
San Diego State Head Coach Brian Dutcher:
(On Sacramento States performance) -“Sac State I’ve seen them play on tape three or four times and the one thing I know they do is they always play hard no matter what the margin is. We had a big enough margin where they weren’t able to fight back but I thought their physical play, the way they defended was effective tonight against us. We had 20 turnovers which is really so I though their physical play took us out of a lot of what we do.”
(On being able to play the bench players) – “I didn’t have to play my starters major minutes, we play tomorrow at four o’clock, it’s a quick turnaround so hopefully we saved some legs for tomorrow’s game.”
(On building a big lead early) – “We shared the ball, got out on the fastbreak, made shots right away. We were able to build a quick lead and then maintain that momentum. We guard pretty well ourselves so they couldn’t spurt on us, they couldn’t get a run of six point, eight points so our defense kind of keeps us ahead.”
San Diego State junior guard Devin Watson:
(On getting a to a fast start) – “I think we played well defensively, we had a strategy and I think we executed.”
(On maintaining a big lead) – “Just staying focused. Our coaches keep us focused, we hold each other accountable even if we’re up 40, if we’re up 20, if we’re up 10. It doesn’t matter the margin, we just want to keep each other focused.”
Sacramento State Head Coach Brian Katz:
(On the team’s performance) – “They obviously are a good team, they had their “A” game. We got down and got overwhelmed, we’re certainly better than we played but I don’t ever want to minimize the oppositions performance, I thought they were really really good. I thought that we got off to a slow start and never really recovered.”
(On his team continuing to battle down large deficit) – “I like my group, their spirit, we had very good competitive spirit, just disappointed tonight. Shoot I’m disappointed for them (SDSU) we didn’t give them much of a game.”
Sacramento State senior forward Justin Strings:
(On what the team can learn from a game like this) – “We have to take care of the ball, we can’t shoot ourselves in the foot and we have to play our style of game no matter who we are playing. We let them take us out of our game and that really hurt us in the first half.”