San Diego State is the last undefeated team in the nation and currently projecting as a 1-seed. Welcome to college hoops in 2020. Are they actually good?
The schedule isn’t very helpful in deducing how good they are. The best win is a neutral court win over Iowa. Iowa is up to 14 in KenPom but don’t play defense. The Aztecs stomped Creighton on a neutral court as well, winning by 31. Their best win might be a win at BYU early in the year.
I’m not sure we’ll learn much the rest of the season. The Mountain West isn’t terrible but it’s not as strong as it has been in the past. The only other Top 100 KenPom team is Utah State who is 65 and they already won at Utah State. It’s fair to say, anyone running through any league undefeated accomplished something incredible and that’s correct. The WCC is rated higher but not by much and we don’t blink an eye when the Zags get a 1-seed.
A lot of that is goodwill. By that, Gonzaga has proved they belong. The Aztecs, while very good under Steve Fisher and a perennially tourney team, they weren’t a regular final four contender. It isn’t fair to hold that against San Diego State. If they go undefeated, they’re a 1-seed.
The team itself is 29th in offensive efficiency and 14th in defensive efficiency. They’re 9th overall in KenPom. They do everything well on defense except foul too much. They’re 8th in effective defensive fg%, 40th in turnover % and 36th in rebounding %.
Offensively, they’re 26th in 3-point shooting, so they can outshoot you and defend you. The only thing they do poorly is get to the line. They protect the ball and get enough offensive rebounds. It’s a very solid team if we look at just the numbers.
Junior guard Malachi Flynn is the best player on the Aztecs. He’s a 6’ 1” guard with nearly a 54% real shooting %. He has a nifty 30.6% assist rate and protects the ball. Kid is a great college basketball player. They get contributions from quite a few other guys and the other names to know are big man Yanni Wetzell, an efficient offensive player and good rebounder on both ends. Junior Jordan Schakel is a good shooter and junior Matt Mitchell is another very efficient player. This a team full of good basketball players.
I wanted to dismiss them based on the schedule but this is a pretty good team. As the season progresses, they will be solid favorites in the rest of their games. Chances are, they’ll slip up somewhere. Either way, with no clear cut favorites this year, dismiss them at your peril.
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