San Diego State rose in the national rankings, but they are likely to drop right back down again with their Tuesday loss in Arizona.
The Aztecs (7-2) will try to get back on a winning track when they begin a streak of three straight games at home at 7:30 p.m. Saturday against UC Irvine (6-3) at Viejas Arena.
Coming off a last-second victory at UC San Diego Friday, the team latched onto the bottom rung of the Associated Press Top 25 Monday, only to fall to Grand Canyon a day later, 79-73.
SDSU was one of two Mountain West programs ranked. Colorado State, undefeated at 9-0, is No. 13. Arizona, Kansas and Houston top the list.
In the loss in Phoenix, four Aztecs scored in double figures, and Jaedon LeDee, with 24 points and 10 rebounds, had another double-double. Reese Waters and Darrion Trammell had 11 points each and Micah Parrish, who now has accumulated more than 1,000 points in his college career, had 10.
But Grand Canyon (7-1) also had four players achieve the same feat and they scored more, led by Ray Harrison with 23. Tyon Grant-Foster followed with 18, while Gabe McGlothan and Collin Moore had 15 points apiece.
For head coach Brian Dutcher, it wasn’t rebounding that made the difference, but the results after the grab.
“We had 13 offensive and they had 10,” he said. “The difference was that they scored on theirs and we didn’t score on ours.”
UC Irvine, coming off a loss to Utah State, is led by Justin Hohn, who averages almost 14 points a game, and Derin Saran, whose average is 11.1. Pierre Crockrell II leads the team with 50 assists on the year, while Devin Tillis and Dean Keeler set the pace on rebounds.
The Anteaters’ head coach Russell Turner also will encounter his second tough crowd in a row with The Show looming at Viejas.
“The atmosphere of this home arena felt different than anything we have played in this year,” he said of Saturday’s game in Logan, Utah. “You could feel that they had a lot of the competitive advantage tonight.”
