Aztecs fall to Cincinnati in OT

San Diego State’s basketball team needed two flights and 10 hours to get to Cincinnati, sitting crammed inside a commuter jet for an hour in Dallas while airline officials removed an unruly passenger. The Aztecs left too early and arrived too late to practice Tuesday.

Then they played like it Wednesday.

And still almost won.

But more improbable than how the No. 19 Aztecs got into overtime before 9,217 at Fifth Third Arena – down five inside 30 seconds to go, saved in part by a 3-pointer in a surprise appearance by Aqeel Quinn just 16 days after surgery on his left hand – was that that they lost in overtime, 71-62 to unranked Cincinnati in a game televised nationally by ESPN2 and watched courtside by NBA legend Oscar Robertson. They had won nine straight overtime games and 18 of 19.

Or put another way: No one wearing black jerseys had ever lost in OT while at SDSU.

“To be honest, I’m at a loss for words,” junior Winston Shepard said. “I just knew going into the overtime that we were going to pull it out.”

“We’re usually tough in (overtimes), we usually pull those out,” senior JJ O’Brien said. “They just started hot, and we couldn’t recover.”

The result was sort of like the weather outside: no precipitation, but cold and gray and windy nonetheless. A memorable final 30 seconds of regulation surrounded by 44½ largely forgettable minutes.

There were the back-to-back 3s by Quinn and freshman Trey Kell that cut the deficit to a point with 10 seconds left, the missed free throw by a Cincinnati guard shooting 85 percent from the line, Shepard’s frenetic coast-to-coast drive that drew a foul with 3.9 seconds. Then Shepard (17 points, four rebounds, five assists but five turnovers) calmly rolling in both free throws to force overtime.

There also were the 11 first-half turnovers and 18 for the game, many against a 2-1-2 press they spent much of Monday’s practice working against. And the 2 of 17 shooting behind the arc before the late-game heroics, including 0 of 7 by slumping Dwayne Polee II. And the 12 points off the bench in the second half and overtime by 6-foot-1 Bearcats guard Farad Cobb, many of them on off-balance jumpers against a taller defender. And Cincinnati’s 62.5-percent shooting (15 of 24) after halftime against a defense ranked third nationally behind Kentucky and Louisville in points allowed per possession.

And scoring one basket in the final 9½ minutes of the first half and closing the half with this sequence of possessions: turnover, miss, miss, turnover, turnover, turnover, turnover, miss, turnover, miss, turnover.

And the two lane violations on missed free throws that the Bearcats converted into two extra points.

And the 12-0 run by Cincinnati after another 3 by Kell (11 points) had put the Aztecs ahead 60-59 early in overtime.

“We fought hard,” Shepard said. “I wouldn’t have expected us to do anything else. But we have to put ourselves in better positions where we don’t have to fight back like that.”

They appeared to be in just that with 9:24 left, up five with Angelo Chol on the line for two free throws. Missed both. The Bearcats went to the other end and missed a 3, but got the offensive rebound and a found Cobb for a jumper to make it 41-38.

Chol threw down a ferocious dunk on the ensuing possession but slipped, landed hard on his left knee and never returned – forcing Skylar Spencer to play the final 4:41 of regulation and all of overtime with four fouls. The Bearcats launched a 16-6 run and a five-point lead had flipped to a five-point deficit.

“This was a game that we could have won,” said Fisher, who noticeably shortened his bench from previous games, opting not to play freshmen Kevin Zabo and Malik Pope. “We did enough good things to win the game, but we didn’t win the game.”

That drops his team to 7-3 in arguably the toughest opening 10 games in his 16 years at SDSU, with three home games against lesser foes (Ball State, UC Riverside and San Diego Christian) left before the Mountain West begins. But it was the last chance to collect a marquee nonconference win on the road, and it could cost the Aztecs residency in the Associated Press Top 25 for the first time in 22 polls – tied for the longest streak in school history.

“We started off in the first 10 minutes and we were playing great,” said O’Brien, who played 43 of the 45 minutes. “We kind of got away from it, turned the ball over, missed shots, didn’t get stops. Things that we were supposed to do, we didn’t do them.

“We’re going to learn from this. The season’s not over. We’re going to be fine.”

Notes

The Aztecs now reverse the two-flight, 10-hour travel ordeal that means another day of missed practice, as they did Tuesday. Next up is Ball State on Saturday night at Viejas Arena in a game that is not televised … The 126-game win streak when leading with five minutes left in regulation was not in play. SDSU trailed 45-43 at the five-minute mark ... Quinn wore a brace on his left wrist and played 27 minutes, finishing with six points on 2 of 10 shooting ... The Aztecs were 9 of 13 (69.2 percent) from the line. Cincinnati was 17 of 21 (81 percent) …

Fisher said while Chol’s left knee is sore, “I think he’s OK.” … The seven Aztecs who played at least 18 minutes all had at least one turnover ... Bearcats guard Troy Caupain, who missed the late free throw that allowed SDSU to tie it: “We could have folded, I could have folded individually after missed the free throws. But my teammates were behind me.” Caupain scored five points in OT ... Cincinnati has now won 26 of its last 27 home games ... Cincinnati athletic director Mike Bohn was at the game, screaming at referees and cheering against the school where he was AD a decade ago.