Photo credit: sjsuspartans.com
By: Ana Kieu
The San Jose State Spartans went on the road to start the week with a Mountain West matchup against the Boise State Broncos. The game’s tipoff on AT&T SportsNet is set for 7:00 pm PT. Spartan fans can hear the home broadcast by tuning into KLIV 1590 AM with Justin Allegri’s play-by-play call. The pregame show begins at 6:30 pm PT.
TV: AT&T SportsNet
It was a two-possession game with 4:30 to play in the second half, and then the first-place Nevada Wolf Pack pulled away from SJSU for a 71-54 win.
Trailing 54-48, the Spartans allowed Nevada to go on a 7-0 Nevada and Caleb Martin put the dagger in with a 3-pointer as the shot clock expired and 15 seconds remaining to put Nevada up by 17 points. Martin finished the game with 24 points.
SJSU’s Brandon Mitchell scored a new career-high 18 points to lead the Spartans.
Boise State currently has the Mountain West’s top rebounding margin of +7.9. But that title belonged to San Jose State for most of the season, and even to date, SJSU has a +5.7 margin, which ranks third in the league.
The two teams are separated by just a sliver in per-game rebounding with the edge going to Boise State at 31.6 as opposed to SJSU’s 31.1. Chandler Hutchison leads Boise State with 8.1 rebounds per game. Hutchison has three other Broncos teammates who are averaging five or more boards per game.
Keith Fisher III leads SJSU with 5.7 rebounds per game. Ryan Welage has been averaging seven rebounds in the last three games.
Heading into Wednesday’s game, San Jose State’s field goal percentage defense ranks fifth in the Mountain West with 42.4.
A 34.7 clip for the Spartans’ opponents from beyond the arc also ranks fifth.
In its last game, SJSU held Nevada to a season-low 26 points on 26.7 percent (8-30) shooting in the first half.
Boise State is one of the teams who are ahead of SJSU in field goal percentage defense. The Broncos have held their opponents to 40.9 percent shooting, ranking second in the conference, while their 29.4 three-point field goal percentage defense towers the conference.
San Jose State freshman Noah Baumann was guarded closely in the Spartans’ games at New Mexico on January 6 and San Diego State on January 9. Baumann went into that week as the league’s most accurate 3-point shooter, qualifying with at least four attempts per game.
The Spartans’ opponents responded by locking Baumann down to a combined six shots in those two games, but Baumann found a way to get his shots against the Air Force Falcons, and they dropped. He finished 4-of-8 from the field, including 3-of-6 from downtown and had a total of 11 points. He nailed both of his 3-point attempts against Nevada.
He is now 17-of-26 (65.4 percent) from 3-point land during conference play. He’s SJSU’s second-leading scorer during league play with 8.1 PPG.
San Jose State trailed Air Force by as many as 18 points in the first half, but battled back to snatch multiple leads in the second period.
The Spartans used their best shooting first half of the season (58.3 percent, 14-24) to climb out of the hole and trailed by six (40-34) at halftime. SJSU trailed by just two points with 2:58 remaining in regulation, but Air Force’s 8-0 run along with the Spartans’ five missed free throws allowed the Falcons to pull out a 78-71 win in San Jose.
Despite a loss, there were plenty of positives in San Jose State’s game against Air Force.
The most important positive was SJSU’s 15 assists to a season-low nine turnovers. The Spartans had turned the ball over 20 or more times in six straight games before giving it away 18 times at San Diego State. Then, they cut the number in half against Air Force.
SJSU’s -6.4 turnover margin and 17.8 giveaways per game rank last in NCAA Division I, but the Spartans now have something to build on if you look at the results from the last game.
San Jose State shot 47.1 percent (24-51) against Air Force and held them to 41.1 percent (23-56) shooting.
It was the fourth time during Mountain West play where SJSU has finished with a better shooting percentage than their opponent.
It’s also the third time that SJSU has made more field goals than their league foe and lost. In these games where the Spartans outshoot their opponent, it’s generally turnovers and 3-point shooting that slant the score in the opponents’ favor.
It has been an up and down senior year for Jalen James. His playing time has been limited by multiple nagging injuries and a few of the team’s different rotations.
But after what was perhaps San Jose State’s worst loss of the season, an 85-49 beating at San Diego State, James responded with one of his best games of the season against Air Force. He scored 13 points, had four assists. He also hit a pair of 3-pointers and guided SJSU for a season-high 29 minutes.
James started a game for the first time since November 22, 2017 in SJSU’s win over Idaho State.
With a pair of free throws with 4:12 remaining in the second half of the game at San Diego State, Ryan Welage scored career points #999 and #1,000. He became the 15th player in program history (108th season) and the first since Justin Graham in 2011 to reach this milestone.
Welage reached 1,000 points in his 77th game as a Spartan. With a minimum of 13 games remaining this season, he could climb higher on SJSU’s all-time scoring list.
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