The San Diego State men’s basketball team denied Bradley an 8-1 start season Sunday at Viejas Arena. The Aztecs down the Braves 75-52 in the annual Mountain West-Missouri Valley Challenge.
SDSU (7-2), off to its best start of the season since 2013-20144, dominated Bradley (7-2) early and did not let up. The Aztecs outscored the Braves, 22-3, in the first 10 minutes of the game. Malik Pope was taken out of the game early after being called for a second foul within the starting minutes of the game, but that didn’t matter as red-shirt freshman Jalen McDaniels came in and contributed to the domination. Bradley was only able to cut the lead to 37-23 at halftime.
“Yeah, he went down so I felt like I had to step up on my part and just play with a lot of energy and be active. I feel like I did that,” Mc Daniels said.
Another strong start in the second half by the Aztecs pushed the lead to 45-23, forcing the Braves to call a timeout. From there, the closest Bradley got was an 18-point deficit.
“We’ve been playing a lot of games, but I thought our kids competed at a high-level today,” SDSU coach Brian Dutcher said. “They came out and worked hard on the glass. This is a good rebounding team and we out-rebounded them by 20.”
The Aztecs were coming off a five-game stretch in 11 days, which did not give them a lot of time to practice. But the Aztecs will have plenty of time to practice now. Their next game isn’t until Saturday when SDSU hosts California.
“Fifth game in 11 days, that’s always a challenge. You get better in practice, so we haven’t had a lot of practice time,” Dutcher said.
The Aztecs improve to 5-2 all-time in Mountain West-Missouri Valley Challenge and won against the Braves in five tries, starting with the first meeting in 1967.
McDaniels scored a team-high 14 points, followed by 12 rebounds — his first career double-double. Both Pope and Jeremy Hemsley had 13 points apiece. This was Pope’s first double-digit scoring in five games. Nine out of 10 Aztecs contributed to the win.
