Coming into the game Wednesday, there were concerns that Trey Kell’s walking pneumonia was going to be a liability for the San Diego State men’s basketball team. Those concerns turned out to be for naught.
Kell scored 17 points in the 97-78 win at Viejas Arena against Colorado State (10-12, 3-6 Mountain West), two shy of his season best. He hadn’t practiced with the team for the past week because of the illness but told his coaches he wanted to do his part to help the team. Kell had been cleared by his doctors to play in Wednesday’s game.
“Obviously, I am not 100 percent,” He said. “I told the coaches I’ll play short spurts if I have to, and help the team any way I can.”
This was the Aztecs’ first win since their win at home on Jan. 9. In the previous three games, SDSU (12-7, 4-4) was leading with five minutes left but managed to blow the lead and lose. That didn’t happen this time.
The Aztecs scored 12 points within 12 minutes into the game and led the Rams 47-33 at halftime following an 11-0 run. A flurry of 3-pointers by Kell, Max Montana, Matt Michell and Devin Watson in the second half helped pushed the lead to as high as 27.
“You know when you are riding a three-game losing streak, the kids are frustrated, the coaches are frustrated, but all you can control is what you can control, which is work and practice,” SDSU coach Brian Dutcher said. “I told them we are going to have to work our way out of this.”
Montana led the Aztecs in scoring with a season-high 20 points. Mitchell scored 15, Watson, Jeremy Hemsley and Jalen McDaniels had 11 points each. Malik Pope scored 10.
Anthony Bonner scored 22 points for the Rams, who were without their leading scorer Prentiss Nixon. He sprained his ankle against Air Force last week and was on the bench with a boot on.
“We miss him. We miss him extremely, he’s a big part of our team, and we’re doing the best we can without him,” Colorado State coach Larry Eustachy said. “When we get him back, I think we’ll be pretty good.”
Eustachy was also hit with a technical foul in the first half in a bizarre incident where he walked out to the key after a foul was called on Deion James. He thought a time had been called.
“I really thought it was a timeout,” Eustachy said. “Luckily it didn’t hurt us, but, I thought they called a foul and it was a TV timeout, so I walked out there.”
Watson missed both free throws. So, no harm was done.
