Aztecs basketball notes: Trip to BYU new for almost every player

If San Diego State basketball players need a tour guide when they get to Provo, Utah, for Saturday afternoon’s game at BYU, they can turn to fifth-year senior guard KJ Feagin. This is his fourth trip.

“It’s … different,” Feagin said.

Coach Brian Dutcher and members of his staff have been, but Feagin is it for players. No one else on the roster has played at the 18,987-seat Marriott Center, incredible as that might sound for rivals with 67 games between 1977 and 2011. They have met just twice since BYU left the Mountain West, at the 2014 Maui Invitational and last year at Viejas Arena.

Feagin approaches it with a mix of dread and anticipation.

“Every time I went up there, it hasn’t gone well,” he said. “Hopefully, this time will be a different outcome.”

His Santa Clara teams lost by 22, 30 and 36. He averaged 9.3 points while shooting 30 percent overall and a combined 1 of 11 behind the arc.

After transferring out of the West Coast Conference, one of the pleasant surprises was glancing at SDSU’s 2019-20 schedule and noticing a nonconference date in Provo – one final chance at redemption.

“Pumped up,” Feagin said. “I’ve been thinking about it ever since it came on my radar.”

What makes playing at the Marriott Center so hard?

“They don’t miss up there, it seems like,” Feagin said. “Once they get going and their crowd gets behind them, it’s a really tough place to play. We have to come prepared. We have to come knowing that they will have their runs and they’ll have their moments where it feels like they can’t miss, but we have to stay with it, stay true to our principles, stay true to our offense and trust each other.

“This will be a good early test for us to really, really see how together we are. I’m excited.”

Utah blues

No other current Aztec has played at BYU, but they have played in Utah and met a similar fate. The roster is a combined 1-12 in the state.

Fifth-year senior Nolan Narain accounts for the lone victory, 66-61 at Utah State during his redshirt freshman season of 2016-17. The Aztecs didn’t play in Logan in 2017-18, then lost there last season. And Malachi Flynn played at Utah twice before transferring from Washington State – both losses.

Practicing winning

Mark Pope replaced retired Dave Rose as BYU’s head coach and he practiced the regular things during the preseason. He also practiced winning a championship.

Seriously, he did.

During their Midnight Madness event last month, Pope gave a fictional play-by-play of the WCC championship game with the Cougars trailing by seven with 1:20 to go. When TJ Haws “made” the winning basket at the buzzer, students rushed the floor and mobbed the players as confetti fell from the ceiling.

“For all of us to kind of practice that together is important because it’s really hard to do,” Pope told the Salt Lake Tribune. “I want my guys to feel that, I want these fans to feel that, and then we have to do the task of actually earning that.”

The Cougars were picked third behind Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s in the preseason WCC coaches poll. They have a KenPom ranking of 70^th, 17 spots ahead of the Aztecs.

Visiting hours

There were two old faces at practice Thursday: Brian Carlwell, a center on the 34-3 team in 2010-11, and former Colorado State coach Larry Eustachy, who is close friends with Steve Fisher.

Carlwell is still playing professionally in Perth, Australia, and was in town during his offseason. Eustachy is retired from coaching – for now, at least – and shuttles between homes in Las Vegas and San Diego, occasionally working as a scout for NBA and European teams. He is a big horse racing fan and a fixture at Del Mar.

Rivalry renewed

For the first time in nearly a decade, SDSU will play BYU in football and men’s basketball in the same season. The Cougars come to SDCCU Stadium on Nov. 30.

In its final year in the Mountain West, in 2010-11, BYU won 24-21 in football in Provo and swept the regular-season basketball games before the Aztecs prevailed in the final of the 2011 conference tournament.

“It’s fun to play BYU,” Dutcher said. “It’s not a Pac-12 game, a power (conference) game, but it has that feel because of the long-time conference rivals and teams that have enjoyed great success in the league together and once they left the league.”

“A lot of people talk about, there’s a lot of buzz about it,” junior Matt Mitchell said. “I still see it as a rivalry. We go in there and take it personal. You have San Diego State across your chest, you want to get a win … It’s something good to get back to.”