No. 18 San Diego State beats Wyoming to celebrate MWC title
By BERNIE WILSON
AP Sports Writer
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Jaedon LeDee scored 21 points and Adam Seiko 14 for the No. 18 San Diego State Aztecs, who celebrated the outright regular-season Mountain West Conference title with a 67-50 victory against Wyoming on Saturday night.
Matt Bradley added 11 points for the Aztecs (24-6, 15-3 MWC), who clinched the conference championship at halftime, thanks to Boise State’s 86-73 loss at Utah State.
The Aztecs had earned a share of the title a week earlier with a buzzer-beating win at New Mexico, but missed taking it outright when they failed to hold a late nine-point lead and lost 66-60 at Boise State on Tuesday night.
But that gave a sellout crowd of 12,414 at Viejas Arena the chance to celebrate and watch the players cut down the nets on Senior Night. It’s the third regular-season title in Brian Dutcher’s six seasons as coach.
Dutcher did a “trust fall” from a ladder after cutting the final piece of net, falling backward into the arms of his players before heading to a locker room celebration.
“Nothing gets old about Gatorade baths,” Dutcher said. “It’s an incredible accomplishment for this team. Regular-season titles are always the hardest thing to get because it takes months. A lot of work. To win this conference by two games is an incredible accomplishment.
“I tell them, they have to tell the players coming in next year, ‘We win titles at this university. If you leave here without one, you’re one of the few.’”
SDSU heads to Las Vegas as the No. 1 seed in pursuit of its seventh MWC tournament title and an automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament.
The Aztecs have won nine regular-season MWC titles, eight of them outright. Both are records. Coupled with six tournament titles, SDSU has won a record 15 league championships overall. The next closest school is New Mexico with eight.
“I wanted the ring,” said Bradley, a fifth-year senior in his second season at SDSU. “I’ve seen my teammates having it and I was like, ‘I need one for myself.’ That’s what I did and now it’s time to win games in March.”
Jeremiah Oden scored 17 and Xavier DuSell had 16 for last-place Wyoming (9-21, 4-14), which was coming off an impressive win against Nevada but couldn’t keep pace with the Aztecs.
SDSU led by one point six minutes into the game before taking control with a 10-0 run. LeDee started it with a slam dunk, Darrion Trammell and Micah Parrish hit 3-pointers and Aguek Arop scored inside for a 19-8 lead.
The Aztecs pushed the lead to 34-15 before Wyoming scored the last seven points of the half.
SDSU had a season-high nine blocked shots, three by Arop.
Bradley hit a step-back corner 3 with 1:57 left, his final shot at home. ,
“It was a good way to cap my time off here, for sure,” he said. “I was struggling at the beginning, but we were blowing them out and I just wanted to have one more thing to stamp my time here. That step-back 3 in the corner did it for me.”
BIG PICTURE
Wyoming: The Cowboys lost for the 10th straight time to the Aztecs.
San Diego State: The Aztecs never trailed for the seventh time this season.
UP NEXT
Wyoming: Will be the 11th seed and face sixth-seeded New Mexico in a play-in game on Wednesday at the MWC Tournament in Las Vegas.
San Diego State: Plays in the first quarterfinal game Thursday against the Colorado State-Fresno State winner.
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