Long drought seals SDSU’s fate in title game against UConn

HOUSTON (AP) — A magical journey put San DiegoState in its first Final Four.

A thrilling buzzer-beater by Lamont Butler landed the Aztecs onewin away from a national title.

Hot early shooting Monday night helped them race to an earlylead against the mighty UConn Huskies.

Then things fell apart.

For more than 11 tortured minutes in the title game, no matterwhat they tried, the Aztecs could not make a field goal in their76-59 loss.

“It’s difficult to play like that,” Butler said.

Fighting against a stifling defense, they missed hook shots, hadlayups blocked, badly missed wide-open 3s and saw easy jump shotsfall short.

The Aztecs (32-7) took shot after shot after shot — 14 in all asthe clock ticked, ticked and ticked — but no matter what they triednothing would fall.

“We were talking about it for sure,” Butler said. “And we weretrying to figure out what we can do to stop the scoring drought andcreate advantages for ourselves. We tried but things weren’tworking.”

By the time Darrion Trammell mercifully made a jump shot withabout 5 ½ minutes left in the first half, the Aztecs had seen afour-point lead turn into a 26-17 hole.

A team that got here on the strength of its vaunted defense wasin the end done in by an offense that went cold at the worstpossible moment.

“It’s the national championship game, a lot of things had to goright on our end in order to win,” guard Matt Bradley said. “Andwhen you’re missing shots and turning the ball over and even whenyou’re playing hard on defense, it’s not going to be enough. So welearned that tonight for sure.”

The Aztecs rallied from a 14-point deficit to beat FloridaAtlantic in the national semifinal, with Butler’s game-winner atthe buzzer marking the first time in Final Four history that abuzzer-beater took a team from trailing to a victory.

This time there would be no such heroics. They did go on asecond half run to make it interesting, though.

San Diego State used a 14-4 spurt, with the first four pointsfrom Jaedon LeDee, to get within 60-55 with about five minutes togo.

But Jordan Hawkins made a 3-pointer seconds after that to starta 9-0 run that shut the door on any designs the Aztecs had onanother remarkable comeback.

Though their defense had been the star of this Cinderella’stournament run entering Monday night, their offense had done plentyto complement it.

Through their first five games in the tournament, the Aztecsshot an average of 42.48%. In the biggest game in school historyMonday night, they shot a tournament-low 32% — a numbersignificantly lowered by a 28.6% first half.

It was their second-lowest shooting percentage of the season,behind the 31.7% they shot in a 62-57 win over Utah State in theMountain West Conference Tournament title game. Their 24 first-halfpoints was the second-fewest they’d managed all season.

There were no tears in San Diego State’s locker room after theloss that snapped a nine-game winning streak, but rather a bunch ofguys who were proud of how far they got, even if they came upshort.

“We were the only ones who believed we could get here,” Trammellsaid. “We surpassed our expectations honestly.”

Added Keshad Johnson, who led the team with 14 points Mondaynight.

“I’m sure we put our school’s name on the map and I’m proud ofthat,” he said.