SAN DIEGO — Let this be a warning to the rest of the Mountain West: the three-headed hydra of experienced post players is just one of the many ways the San Diego State women can win, as the trio led the way over the Boise State Broncos 74-59 on Sunday afternoon at Viejas Arena.
Adryana Quezada came off the bench to score a game and her season-high 19 points, while Kim Villalobos grabbed her 12th career double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds and Cali Clark helped lock down the paint with 8 points, eight rebounds, four blocks and four steals.
“We worked all week on pump faking at the rim and making sure that we were getting shots that we could make, and I thought we did that offensively,” said head coach Stacie Terry-Hutson. “What I was really, really happy with was our four man rotation of our post. Really got down and defended at a really high level.”
SDSU (12-2, 1-0 Mountain West Conference) controlled the key all day, piling up a 48-20 advantage on points in the paint while winning on the boards 34-28 and swatting six shots against the conference leaders in blocks per game. Boise State (10-4, 0-1) was held to 35.6% (21 of 59) shooting as the Aztecs made one 3-pointer.
“Today the post kind of took over and we were able to get the ball moving, and we kind of took what the game gave us,” said Clark, who finished a game-best +17. “I think it's a priority for us to kind of get the ball everywhere, and today we got the ball inside.”
A critical point was play near the rim, as SDSU made 20 of 26 layups while harassing Boise State into just 8 of 27 on their in close opportunities.
“I thought they did a really good job against two completely different types of post players — you had the power post players in (Elodie) Lalotte and (Abby) Muse, and then you had Tatum (Thompson) who could shoot the 3,” Terry-Hutson said.
SDSU took control in the first quarter thanks to a five-plus minute stretch where they outscored the Broncos 15-2 and allowed only one make over nine shots by the visitors. 11 players saw time in the opening 10 minutes, with seven putting points on the board to build the Aztecs lead to 19-10.
Quezada made her presence felt in the second quarter, scoring 9 points on 4 of 6 shooting. She nailed a 3-pointer to punctuate an 8-0 run that pushed the lead out to 16 points and forced the Broncos to call a time-out two minutes in.
“You've seen it before, you just haven't seen it this year. You know they're capable of doing it, it's no surprise to me,” Terry-Hutson said. “When our guards are playing at a high level and we can throw the ball inside and score like we did today, I think it just creates a lot of mismatch problems for our opponents.”
Boise State had their lone run of 6-0 when Mya Hansen made a 3 and was fouled, converting the 4-point-play inside of two minutes remaining. Veronica Sheffey — who finished with 10 points — made a layup with 44 seconds before halftime to give SDSU 39-27 lead at the break.
The Scarlet and Black allowed Boise State within single digits just once in the second half when Libby Hutton banked in a 3-ball from the top of the key at the 5:24 mark of the third to cut the deficit to 8 points. Quezada responded with back-to-back buckets, with the last being a step-back, fade-away jumper over conference blocks leader Muse.
Villalobos scored 11 of her 15 points in the second half as SDSU continued to pour it on, shredding the interior with high-low post plays and finding back-cuts along the baseline for layups.
“I think this is the type of basketball we want to play always, no matter the opponent, we want to keep the standard high because we have a goal and we're going to do whatever it takes to get there,” Clark said. “Just stacking games where we're playing aggressive and doing the things we need to do is a priority.”
Hansen led the Broncos with 18 points, but leading scorer Natalie Pasco was the only other player in double-digits for the visitors as she scored 10 points. SDSU had nine different players score, as Naomi Panganiban added 8 points and the Aztecs shot 52.7% from the field against the second-best field goal percentage defense in the conference.
San Diego State travels to Fort Collins to face the Colorado State Rams at noon on Wednesday, January 1, 2025 before returning home to welcome New Mexico on Saturday, Jan. 4 at 1 p.m.
“It's always hard to come back (from holiday break), but I thought they came in with the attitude — this is a veteran group and the freshmen are following suit of understanding how important each conference game is,” Terry-Hutson said.
“We're trying to make sure that we put ourselves in the best position to give ourselves a great opportunity to win the conference tournament and to go dancing in March.”