Aztecs Slip Into Second After Loss to Hawaii

SAN DIEGO —  San Diego State guard Anthony Watson’s performance Thursday night proved you don’t have to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated to suffer from the magazine’s jinx.

In this week’s issue of the magazine, Watson was named college basketball player of the week for scoring 25 points in three straight victories.

But in Hawaii’s 69-68 Western Athletic Conference upset win over the Aztecs at the San Diego Sports Arena, Watson scored only 10 points on a 3 for 12 shooting performance, and he committed six turnovers to almost negate his eight assists.

However, the thing the crowd of 5,290 will remember most is the two shots he missed in the final five seconds.

The loss puts SDSU (11-4, 21-6) in second place in the WAC, a half-game behind Texas El Paso. SDSU closes out its regular season Saturday night at Colorado State.

UTEP, idle Thursday, plays at New Mexico on Saturday and at Colorado State on March 2.

Trailing 69-68 against a Hawaii team that had not won a league game on the mainland this season, the Aztecs called time out with 17 seconds to play.

“We were looking for Watson or Konek (Jeff) to take a shot around the foul line with about five seconds to play . . . We got the shot, but Watson was kind of off tonight for some reason,” Aztec Coach Smokey Gaines said.

Watson’s shot from left of the foul line hit the front rim and bounced away. The 6-foot 3-inch guard grabbed the rebound from the Hawaii players with two seconds to play, and heaved the ball toward the basket.

The wild shot hit the left side of the backboard, and the Hawaii players jubilantly ran off the court.

Just 21 seconds before the end of the game, it appeared the Aztecs might dodge the bullet on a night they were flat--mentally and physically.

Leading 67-65, the Aztecs came up with a play that will surely be included in the team highlight film. Aztec forward Andre Ross stripped the ball from Hawaii forward Anthony Jones. The loose ball rolled toward the right sideline. A race ensued between Konek and the bouncing ball.

Konek batted the ball upcourt while diving out of bounds. Watson raced to grab the ball on the other end of the court, and made a twisting layup from the right side while being fouled. Watson hit the free throw to give the Aztecs a 68-67 lead.

It was a short-lived lead. It didn’t even last one second.

“We wanted to put a little pressure on them,” Gaines said, “but we weren’t trying to foul them.”

However, Watson got tangled up with Hawaii guard William Colston (six points), and a foul was called before the ball was inbounded.

“He was pushing me and was bodying up,” Watson said. “He had his elbow in my chest, but the referee behind the play thought it was on me.”

Colston, a 70% foul shooter, hit his only two attempts of the night to provide the Rainbows (9-16, 5-10) with their fourth win in five games. “That’s the type of situation when you want your senior up there,” Hawaii Coach Larry Little said.

The Aztecs, whose only two losses in their last 11 games are by one and two points (67-65 to Utah), never appeared to have the right people in the right places Thursday.

“We made a lot of mental mistakes out there,” said Aztec guard Creon Dorsey, who went scoreless and had only three assists while being hampered by his sore right heel and leg.

“There were a lot of things we shouldn’t have been doing,” Dorsey said. “Our heads weren’t up.”

The Aztecs had a 19-12 lead at the midway point of the first half, but they proceeded to miss numerous layups and dunks and ended up leading by only two, 36-34, at halftime.

Unlike their previous two games when the Aztecs came out smoking in the second half, they continued to give Hawaii a lot of second shots.

The Rainbows shot only 45% from the field, but got 19 points from guard Andre Morgan, 18 from forward Ray Arthur (18) and 15 from forward Garland Hughes.

SDSU also committed numerous turnovers (17 to 9 for Hawaii), and forced numerous shots.

Watson, Dorsey and Konek--the Aztecs’ three-guard offense--combined to shoot 6 for 20.

Forwards Michael Kennedy (9 of 11 from the field and 19 points) and Ross (5 of 10 and 14 points) and center Leonard Allen (15 points, team-high 9 rebounds and 6 blocked shots) kept the Aztecs in the game.

For most of the season, the Aztecs have been winning the close ones.

“We’ve been escaping those losses all year,” Gaines said, “but this was very tough to lose.”