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February 12, 2017 (San Diego) - SDSU men's basketball returned home after a loss against San Jose State to play host to the Wolf Pack of Nevada in a Sunday matinee on White Out Day.
SDSU was stunned by the quickness of the Wolf Pack in the first four minutes, but junior forward Malik Pope was quicker, getting seven first half points quickly and helping the Aztecs to a quick lead. The more the Aztecs scored, the slower Nevada got and they were less apt to defend the Aztecs’ big guns, allowing for drives to the hoop. It helped too that the Wolf Pack ran into foul trouble. By the end of the first half, the Aztecs were propelled to a 42-28 lead thanks to senior forward Matt Shrigley’s back-to-back threes at the end of the half. Pope and sophomore guard Jeremy Hemsley both scored 11 first half points.
The second half belonged to Trey Kell. The junior guard, who became the 31st player in SDSU history to reach 1,000 career points, scored four points to open the second half. He finished with a game-high 17 points, followed by Hemsley with 15 and Pope with 12 as the Aztecs, as always, secured a much-needed home win against Nevada 70-56 to move to a .500 record (6-6) in Mountain West play and 14-10 overall.
“We played well,” head coach Steve Fisher said after the game. “We brought a lot of energy...early on, Malik kind of set the tone with his aggressive play, especially offensively. Good, solid, well-deserved team victory against a very good team. Trey over a thousand was a nice milestone for him. It felt good today for everybody...it was fun. This is a good win for us. Our challenge for all of us is to do it again.”
"We came out in the first half, we played good offensively and defensively," Kell said. "Second half, we had a couple spurts where we were a little lackadaisical, but for 40 minutes, I feel like we played pretty hard and pretty well."
SDSU will make a quick road trip to Logan, Utah to face the Utah State Aggies on Wednesday night. Tipoff is at 7:00 p.m.
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