A look at Friday night’s game between No. 19 SDSU and BYU:
Site/time: Viejas Arena/7:30 pm Friday
On the air: YurView (Cox channel 4), stream available at YurView.com or GoAztecs.com; 760 AM
Records: Both teams are 1-0.
Series history: BYU leads 50-25 and has won the last two, 66-60 at Provo last year and 72-62 at Viejas in front of no fans in 2020. The last Aztecs win was 76-71 in Provo in 2019, part of their 26-0 start to the season.
Cougars update: They needed Spencer Johnson’s 3 with 11 seconds left Monday to secure a 60-56 win against visiting Idaho State, which won only five Div. I games last season and had a Kenpom rating of 339 (out of 358 schools). The Cougars shot only 37.3 percent, were 3 of 16 behind the arc and had 23 turnovers. Johnson finished with 11 points in his first career start, and Fousseyni Traore had a double-double (15 points, 11 rebounds). Making his BYU debut was 6-4 guard Dallin Hall, a former Mr. Basketball in Utah who served a two-year Mormon mission to Fresno. Also on the roster is senior guard Rudi Williams, a transfer from Coastal Carolina (and, before that, Kansas State) who took an official visit to SDSU. The Cougars have some size on the bench, but they started no one over 6-7. They won 12 straight games in November, including last year’s win against SDSU in Provo. Gone are their only double-figure scorers from last season: sharpshooting guard Alex Barcello (16.8 points, 42.1 percent on 3s) and Te’Jon Lucas (10.4 points). Forward Caleb Lohner (7.0 points, 6.4 rebounds) transferred to Baylor. The Cougars are 4-1 in their last five trips to Viejas Arena. They are 58th in the Kenpom metric.
Aztec’s update: They cruised in the opener against Cal State Fullerton, winning 80-57 after an explosive start to the second half (29 points in less than eight minutes). No one played more than 24 minutes as coach Brian Dutcher went 10 deep with his initial rotation: nine veterans plus true freshman Elijah Saunders. This is the first leg of a renewed two-year series, with the teams playing at the Marriott Center in Provo next season. The last time they played in Viejas, the 18th-ranked Aztecs came from 17 points down in the second half to tie it behind a career-high 35 points from Matt Mitchell (26 in the second half). But the Cougars pulled away late and won by 10, knocking the Aztecs from the AP Top 25. SDSU defended to its usual standards against Fullerton, holding the Titans to 39.2-percent shooting and forcing 18 turnovers, but the Cougars pose a different offensive threat – wanting to shoot 3s instead of attacking the rim, and pushing the tempo at every opportunity. Keshad Johnson suffered a shoulder contusion from a hard fall moments into Monday’s game but is expected to play. The Aztecs moved up two spots to 17th in Kenpom.
Next up: at Stanford on Tuesday (6 pm, Pac-12 Network)
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