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SDSU beats Pitt, gets Arizona in final

Aztecs get rematch against team that knocked them out of NCAA Tournament

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The pairings for the Maui Invitational were unveiled in August, eight teams assigned first-round games followed by lines into the winners’ or losers’ brackets. San Diego State players looked at their draw and then moved their finger to one team, tracing its progression to determine when they might meet.

The Arizona Wildcats.

They’ll get ’em. In the final. Wednesday, Lahaina Civic Center, 7 p.m. PST, ESPN.

If you thought a dramatic, emotional double-overtime win 20 hours earlier against the team Aztecs fans love to hate would take something out of their legs and minds, you thought wrong. The 15th-ranked Aztecs led by seven just minutes into the game, by 14 at the half, by 20 early in the second half and dispatched Pittsburgh with surprising ease, 74-57 in the Maui semifinals. It was SDSU's 16th straight regular-season win with 24 hours or less turnaround between games.

Third-ranked Arizona (5-0) had a tougher time holding up its end of the bargain, holding off unranked Kansas State 72-68 in the day’s first semifinal. It will be the 11th time in the last 13 seasons that they’ve played, including last season's epic Sweet 16 encounter, and the second time in three years in a tournament final in the Hawaiian islands.

Two years ago, Arizona beat SDSU in the Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu when Nick Johnson flew in from behind to somehow swat Chase Tapley’s layup at the buzzer and preserve a 68-67 win.

“For me, this will be my fourth time playing them,” Winston Shepard said. “Oh-and-three so far … I remember my old (high school) teammate Nick Johnson stealing a win from us in Hawaii. I thought we had played great. Chase Tapley had a great look. Nick just made a great play. Me personally, I just want to redeem that.”

For the second straight night, the Aztecs (5-0) had a quick start fueled by an unlikely source. Monday, it was Shepard scoring seven points in the opening two minutes after scoring six in 26 minutes in SDSU’s previous game. Tuesday, it was true freshman Trey Kell.

He opened the season with nine points, total, in three games on 2 of 16 shooting. Tuesday against Pitt, he had SDSU’s first six points and 12 by halftime. Then he opened the second half with a corner 3-pointer, his first of the season, and finished with a game-high 15 points on 7 of 9 shooting.

“The first couple games, I came out a little tentative, nervous, the big stage,” said Kell, who had 14 points in Monday’s 92-87 win against BYU. “Over these past games, I’ve felt like myself out there, felt comfortable with my coaches and teammates pushing me to be aggressive.”

Added Shepard: “The country is starting to see what we’ve known really since this summer: He’s a good player.”

Two other numbers stood out: .587 and 11.

The first was SDSU’s season-high shooting percentage (27 of 46) after 32- and 24-percent games in the previous week, negating a 35-21 rebounding advantage by Pitt (3-2).

The second was the number of players who saw action, and scored. After four guys played 37 or more minutes against BYU the previous night, including 48 (of a possible 50) by JJ O’Brien, coach Steve Fisher had little choice but to use his bench early and often. With the game comfortably under control in the second half, he could use it out of choice instead of necessity.

“We knew we were going to have to sub frequently,” said Fisher, who passed George Ziegenfuss as SDSU's winningest head coach with victory No. 317. “I told our players: ‘I don’t know exactly how, but we’re going to play a lot of you, so be ready.' But we've got good players, and all those guys are nipping at the heels of the guys who get called to be part of the starting lineup. They want to be there. So they come in, compete hard.”

In all, no one played more than Shepard’s 28 minutes and 10 had double-figure minutes. O’Brien played 19 and had all eight of his points in a three-minute stretch in the second half. Aqeel Quinn played 18, 20 fewer than the night before. Freshman Malik Pope got valuable minutes. Sophomore D’Erryl Williams, after playing five minutes all season, got in for the final 5:40.

The Aztecs closed the first half with a 9-2 run, then scored the first six points of the second half to push the margin to 20. The biggest lead was 25. The exclamation point came on a Dwayne Polee II’s fierce dunk with 1:45 to go that brought the SDSU players to their feet on the bench.

“If you told me we’d outrebound them by 14, I would have felt pretty good going into it,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “We played a very good team that is older, quicker and stronger to the ball than us, and it showed. They’re very good.”

Next up: the Wildcats.

No one has been waiting – wanting – to play them in Maui more than 6-foot-9 junior forward Angelo Chol, who matched his career high with 10 points in 14 minutes against Pitt. He began his career at Arizona as a four-star prospect out of Hoover High, barely played and transferred to SDSU. He sat out last season, watching the Aztecs’ two meetings with Arizona from the bench.

“I want to play them,” Chol said a year ago. “I want them to know that I made a good decision to transfer, to make them see the mistakes they made by not letting me play. I’m going to do that by improving here and getting better, then playing against them and actually beating them so they can see.”

Notes

Some other impressive numbers: Pitt shot 37.7 percent and had 17 turnovers, and SDSU had 10 blocks (five by Skylar Spencer for the second straight game). The Aztecs had a 38-20 advantage in points in the paint and 31-17 in bench scoring ... Pope played 12 minutes and had two points (on free throws) and two blocks ... Another fine game from Shepard, with 13 points and seven rebounds a night after posting 18 and eight. He had three assists both nights ... James Robinson, with 17 points, was the only Pitt player to score in double figures ... After at least 15 offensive rebounds in each of their first four games, the Aztecs had just five Tuesday ... Through five games, Kell has nine assists against four turnovers, above the magic 2-to-1 ratio for point guards ... It was SDSU's 52nd straight nonconference win against an unranked opponent.

No. 15 SDSU vs. No. 2 Arizona

Site/time: Lahaina Civic Center, Hawaii/7 p.m. PST Wednesday

On the air: ESPN/1090-AM

Records: Both teams are 5-0.

Series: Arizona leads 23-7 and has won 10 of the last 12. They met twice last season, both Wildcats wins, at Viejas Arena in November and in the Sweet 16 in Anaheim.

Wildcats update: They lose wing Aaron Gordon, who was the fourth pick of the NBA Draft. No problem. They reload with wing Stanley Johnson from Mater Dei, the nation’s No. 3 prep prospect. Nick Johnson also left for the NBA, but the rest of the crew is back: G TJ McConnell, G Gabe York, F Brandon Ashley, F Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and C Kaleb Tarczewski. York, Johnson, Ashley and Tarczewski all scored in double figures in a tougher-than-you-would-have-expected 72-68 semifinal win against unranked Kansas State. One thing you likely won’t see from Arizona is zone. Sean Miller, like SDSU’s Steve Fisher, is almost exclusively a man-to-man coach. The two schools have discussed resuming a home-and-home series that ended last year, but they decided against playing this season knowing both were in the Maui tournament. The only common opponent is CSUN, which SDSU beat by 21 in its opener and Arizona beat by 18 two days later.

--MARK ZEIGLER

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