SAN DIEGO – With the door remaining cracked open with a chance for a share of the Mountain West regular season title, the San Diego State Aztecs effort to hold off the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels 89-86 matched how frenetic the conference’s close has been.
BJ Davis hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key with 3:24 to play, part of his career-high 30 points, that gave the Aztecs (20-10, 14-6 Mountain West) a lead they’d hold for the rest of the way. The junior from Modesto and senior Reese Dixon-Waters helped close the result with clutch free-throws the rest of the way to seal the result on Friday night at Viejas Arena.
“BJ was incredible. He made big, important shots, he attacked the basket and he made important plays," head coach Brian Dutcher said. "He is a player who, when they go any place like that, he makes us all look good. March is for players, and he stepped up in March basketball.
"If he plays that way in March, we will have a chance to continue to win something.”
The guard duo were the only Scarlet and Black players to score in double digits, as Dixon-Waters finished with 22 points and a team-high six rebounds in his final game on Steve Fisher Court. Taj DeGourville came off the bench to score 7 points and equal Sean Newman Jr. with a game-high four assists, while four additional players scored 6 points apiece.
The evening seemed like a ‘can you top this?’ battle between Davis and Mountain West leading scorer Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn, who scored a game-high 32 points for the Runnin’ Rebels. Tyrin Jones came off the bench with 14 of his 22 points in the second half for UNLV, who hit 10 3-pointers for the second game in a row and just the fifth time making double-figures from downtown all season.
For as much as Davis’s offense carried the day for SDSU, one of his most critical plays came with under 90 seconds remaining when he was able to save a cross-court pass from going out of bounds along the near sideline. He then found Dixon-Waters in the corner for an open 3, who was fouled on the closeout by Kimani Hamilton and promptly made all three at the stripe.
Oh, and he also knocked the ball free from Gibbs-Lawhorn to deny the opportunity to attempt a potential game-tying 3-pointer at the end of the game.
“I knew they needed three points and they had the ball up there dancing at the top. I knew they were going to take a dribble and shoot it," Davis said. "It was just instinctual, I reached and I got it.”
Nicknamed 'Hibachi' earlier this season, Davis became the first Aztec to score 30 points since Jaedon LeDee put up 32 points against UAB in the first round of the 2024 NCAA Tournament, and was the sixth player to hit that plateau since Dutcher took over as head coach in 2017-18. After opening the season scoring double-figures in 10 of his first 14 games, Davis did so for the 15th time this season and the second time in the four games since he returned to coming off the bench.
After getting badly out-rebounded in their road finale at Boise State, the Aztecs responded by winning the battle on the boards with a 33-30 edge, though the Rebels had a 16-10 advantage in second chance scoring. SDSU’s guards accounted for 17 of the team’s rebounds.
"We have to continue to work on rebounding, because it is going to be the key to our season as we go into the Mountain West conference tournament,” Dutcher said.
Another key was the gutty defending by Miles Byrd, who while playing much of the game with a compression sleeve on his right leg and visibly favoring it, swatted three shots and knocked loose three steals to go with six points.
UNLV only managed to go in front twice in the second half, the final time coming when Howie Flemming Jr. tripled with 6:43 to play for a 1-point lead. Dixon-Waters answered with a 3-ball nearly a minute later that was the 11th and final lead change for the game to go with 12 ties.
The Runnin’ Rebels started hot, making five of their first six attempts from downtown and making it the fourth time in the last seven games that SDSU had allowed two or more 3-pointers before the 16 minute mark of the opening half.
Gibbs-Lawhorn made three of the triples, including a pair that served as the meat of an 8-0 push by UNLV that gave them their largest lead of the game at 19-11 at the 14:21 mark when Jacob Bannarbie made a pair of free-throws.
It was short-lived, as the Aztecs dashed off their 21st run of 10 or more points for the year, started by a Dixon-Waters paint bucket. A steal by the senior then set up Davis to knock down a triple, but the run kicked into high gear when Pharaoh Compton emerged from underneath the basket to swat a driving try by Gibbs-Lawhorn.
DeGourville then threaded the needle for Oden to slam the transition jam home. After a travel, Compton drove the lane and scored, then DeGourville gathered a long rebound (his third in his opening five minutes off the bench) and sprinted the length of the court and banked home a jumper.
Compton played the least of the five off the bench for SDSU, scoring 6 points with a block and a rebound while finishing a game-high plus-10 in his 13-plus minutes.
The run turned a 3-point deficit into a 2-point lead, and for the rest of the half neither team would be able to manage a lead of bigger than two possessions. Dixon-Waters tripled with just under five minutes remaining to put SDSU ahead for the remainder of the half — the sixth lead change of the opening 20 minutes to go with five ties.
Prior to the game, San Diego State honored their five-player senior class of Dixon-Waters, Byrd (who is in his fourth year with the program after receiving a medical redshirt as a true freshman) transfers Newman Jr. and Jeremiah Oden, and walk-on Cam Lawin.
“It means a lot coming to SDSU from another program. It's pretty different. It’s a family here," Dixon-Waters said. "One thing I learned is to take it day by day, not looking into the future. It’s not promised. I'm very thankful for my time here."
Elzie Harrington, who was listed as questionable on the pregame availability report, did not go through pregame warmups and was in street clothes for the game.
San Diego State can earn a share of the Mountain West regular season championship if New Mexico is able to beat Utah State on the road at 1 p.m. on Saturday afternoon. If so, all three teams would finish with 14-6 records, though the Aztecs will not be able to get the No. 1 seed for the Mountain West tournament, which begins on Wednesday, March 11 at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.
The Aztecs will begin play in the quarterfinals, which begin at noon on Thursday, March 12, with their seed and opponent to be determined. Opening round games for the Mountain West tournament will be streamed on the Mountain West Network, then the quarterfinals and semi-finals will be televised on CBS Sports Network, with the championship game broadcast on CBS. A local radio broadcast of all SDSU games at the tournament will be available on 760 AM.
This story was updated at 11:18 p.m.