Darren Yamashita - Imagn Images
San Diego State Aztecs guard Taj DeGourville (24) dribbles against the California Golden Bears during the first half at SAP Center.
FINAL: San Diego State 67, Air Force 38
SAN DIEGO — The San Diego State men's basketball team returns home to host Air Force at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday night, fresh off an emphatic road win at Boise State over the weekend.
The Aztecs (9-3, 2-1 Mountain West Conference) earned just their second win over Boise State over their last eight meetings, led by a career-high 22 points from Miles Byrd and 13 points from Taj DeGourville, who earned Mountain West Conference Freshman of the Week honors for the second time in his career thanks in part to the performance.
Defense continues to be the bellwether for the Scarlet and Black, who are the only Division I team leading their conference in scoring defense, field-goal percentage defense, 3-point percentage defense and blocks per game. Against the Broncos, they held the hosts to 37.7% shooting — nearly 10 percentage points below their season average of 47.5% — and improved to 8-0 this season when keeping opponents below 40% shooting. Mountain West Preseason Player of the Year Tyson Degenhart scored a season-low 9 points, shot 1 of 7 from the field while missing all five of his 3-point tries.
DeGourville played the final 7:05 of the contest and led the Aztecs with six rebounds, with two coming on the offensive glass, sparking SDSU to edges of 39-29 in total rebounds and 15-9 on offensive boards. He was also an efficient 4 of 7 from the field, while also notching an assist to add to his second-best 25 assists amongst Mountain West freshmen. DeGourville ranks 10th nationally among freshmen with a 2.78:1 assist to turnover ratio.
Air Force (3-11, 0-2) is once again facing several growing pains this season for a roster with 10 freshman and seven sophomores to go with six seniors. Their 65.1 points per game rank near the bottom both in conference and nationally, while their 70.0 points against per game is in the top half of NCAA DI. The Falcons do not have a win since topping Stony Brook at the Legends Showcase in Frisco, Texas on December 7, 2024.
Senior guard Ethan Taylor has led the team in scoring five times this season, with four 20-plus point efforts to go with leading the team in rebounding nine times and in assists 10 times. Sophomore center Wesley Celichowski has also led the team in scoring four times and started all but one game for Air Force. The team runs the matchup zone defense, which is also used by UC San Diego and Utah State — additional coverage on SDSU's difficulties against that defensive set were detailed earlier this week by the San Diego Union Tribune (link below).
The Aztecs have won nine of the last 10 against the Falcons, and will be looking for their first conference home win of the season tonight after losing to No. 25 Utah State in their first Mountain West home game.
Catch up on coverage leading into Wednesday: