Basketball players in white huddle on one side of the court while a referee and players in blue look on.
San Diego State players huddle during their lopsided First Four loss to North Carolina. (Photo by Derrick Tuskan)

Not even the return of the big man helped.

San Diego State made a quick exit from the NCAA Tournament Tuesday, getting blown out by North Carolina, 95-68, in a First Four matchup in Dayton, Ohio.

The Aztecs, like the Tar Heels, came into the game as the 11th seed in the South Region, but got a giant boost with the return of 7-footer Magoon Gwath, the Mountain West Defensive Player of the Year who had been out for nearly a month with a knee injury.

But Gwath had little impact in the first half and the Aztecs (21-10) succumbed to a North Carolina team (23-13) that the media and critics said shouldn’t have been selected for the
tournament.

Now North Carolina advances to face No. 6 seed Mississippi in a South Region game Friday in Milwaukee.

“Obviously, we wish we’d have given them more of a game,” Aztecs coach Brian Dutcher said. “We hang our hat on our defense, and we couldn’t get stops. We knew we had to play in the 70s to have a chance, and they were up in the 90s.”

Guard BJ Davis got the Aztecs on the board right away with a basket but from there, the
Tar Heels slowly took over, running up a 16-11 lead.

The Aztecs were out-rebounded early by a margin of 8-4 and were shooting only 30.8% from the field.

The Aztecs continued to struggle offensively, and North Carolina built their lead to double digits halfway through the first half, 29-13.

It got worse as the Tar Heels went on a run to build a 21-point lead, 37-16, and with
every missed basket, the Aztecs looked powerless to stop the bleeding. By halftime, North Carolina had a 47-23 lead.

The Aztecs were one of the best defensive teams in the nation. But it didn’t seem to
matter to North Carolina.

The ugly story of the first half:

  • North Carolina shot at a 60.9% clip from the field. San Diego State limped behind at 26.7%.
  • North Carolina hit 77.8% of its three-pointers and San Diego State just 25%.
  • North Carolina was perfect on free throws, 12 of 12. San Diego State made 3 of 6.

How bad was it? At halftime, the Aztecs’ X account featured a photo of the score with the message: “We’ve got work to do.”

But SDSU didn’t fare much better to start the second half, watching the Tar Heel lead reach 30 points less than two minutes in, then seeing the deficit balloon to 40 with 7:36 left on the clock.

North Carolina’s RJ Davis ended up with 26 points with six three-pointers while Seth Trimble added 16. Trimble and Ven-Allen Lubin were each perfect from the line at 6-for-6 and 8-for-8 respectively.

Nick Boyd and Wayne McKinney III each scored 12 for SDSU.

“I mean, our guys are in pain in the locker room … We hit them on a really good night for
them and we didn’t play nearly as well on either end of the floor and I think it snowballed
in the wrong direction for us,” Aztecs Assistant Coach Ryan Badrtalei said in a post-game interview with San Diego Sports 760 radio.

NOTES: The game matched teams that made it to two of the last three NCAA championship games – SDSU in 2023 and North Carolina in 2022. Each ended up as the runner-up … The Aztecs and the Tar Heels met for the third time. North Carolina now is a perfect 3-0 … It was the 12th tournament appearance for the Aztecs in the last 15 seasons. They made the title game in 2023 and the Sweet 16 last year, falling to UConn both times.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.