Playing its best basketball of the season and winners of four of its last five games, San Diego State travels to Fort Collins, Colo., to face Colorado State Tuesday night.
The Aztecs and Rams are meeting for the 84th time with San Diego State owning a slim, 42-41, advantage in the series. SDSU swept the two-game series last season and has won six of the last nine encounters between the teams.
One of the two teams has swept the series each of the last three seasons (SDSU in 2016 (two games), CSU in 2017 (three games) and SDSU in 2018.
San Diego State is 9-4 in its last 13 visits to Moby Arena. The Aztecs have handed the Rams nine of their last 71 home losses and, since Feb. 4, 2006, are 9-4 in a venue where the rest of the country is 62-137.
On Saturday, San Diego State used a 23-0 first-half run to defeat Utah State, 68-63, and snap the Aggies seven-game winning streak.
In addition to winning four of its last five games, the Aztecs are also 5-2 since Jan. 15, with a scoring margin of +7.3 during that span (that ranks third in the Mountain West during that span).
Sophomore forward Jalen McDaniels continues his impressive play and has reached double figures in a career-high 12 straight games. On Saturday he tied a career-high with three three-pointers.
Since Dec. 29, 2018 (which includes 12 games), McDaniels is averaging 20.0 points, 9.8 rebounds and 2.1 assists, while shooting 53.6 percent from the field. He is the one of only three players in the nation that is averaging 20-9.5-2 and is shooting at least 50 percent from the field during that time frame.
As if that was not imposing enough, McDaniels has now connected on nine of his last 16 attempts from three-point range (56.3 percent). He has made a trey in a career-high five straight games.
SDSU's defense continues to improve at a dramatic rate. The Aztecs, who earlier this season allowed four opponents in a six-game stretch to shoot above 50 percent, rank among the top of the conference in several defensive categories since Jan. 8, including 1st in opponent field goal percentage (.408), 2nd in point allowed (65.4), 2nd in two-point percentage (.440) and 3rd in turnovers (13.9).
Senior guard Devin Watson had a game-high 23 points against Utah State. He now has 13 or more points in seven consecutive games (18.1 ppg), his longest such streak since a nine-game run while he was at USF from Dec. 21, 2015-Jan. 28, 2016.
True freshman Nathan Mensah recorded his first career double-double in the victory over the Aggies with 10 points and 10 rebounds. He joined Kawhi Leonard as the only Aztec freshmen in the last 23 seasons to have at least 10 points, 10 rebounds, two assists and three blocked shots in the same game.
In his last six games, senior guard Jeremy Hemsley is averaging 10.7 points, 3.0 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 1.3 steals and 0.8 blocked shots. He has connected on 50.0 percent of his field goal attempts. He needs three points to pass Billy White for 10th place on the school's all-time scoring chart.
Although currently in fourth place in the Mountain West, SDSU is only 1-game back in the loss column of second place.
San Diego State is one of just two Mountain West teams that has not dropped a league home game (Nevada).
In Mountain West play, the Aztecs rank 1st in free throw percentage (78.6), and 3rd in scoring defense (67.7), field goal percentage defense (42.3), rebound margin (+2.0), offensive rebound percentage (29.8) and turnover margin (+1.4).
Men's Hoops Travels to Colorado State
