After San Diego State’s historic win against UCLA on Dec. 1, Coach Steve Fisher received a congratulatory text from Oklahoma coach Lon Kruger. When Oklahoma beat then-No. 5 Kansas in January, Fisher texted the same to Kruger.
On Friday, one of them will be congratulating the other on the biggest win of the season. Seventh-seeded SDSU and No. 10 Oklahoma meet in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament, Friday at approximately 6:20 p.m. in Philadelphia.
“Everybody always says they’re friends,” Fisher said. “But Lon and I really are friends. Our wives are friends. We enjoy each other’s company. When we go on the Nike (coaching) trip, we find ways to get together, to have lunch or dinner together with our wives.
“You’d rather not play someone you have an affinity for. I’d like to have Lon Kruger go deep in the tournament. But one of us is going home after the first game.”
Otherwise, though, Selection Sunday was kind to Fisher and his 22-10 Aztecs.
They got the No. 7 seed in the South Region and avoided, as most bracketologists had forecast, the dreaded 8-9 line where you get the No. 1 seed in the second game and historically over the last 10 years have a 1-in-20 chance of surviving the first weekend.
They were rated a respectful 26th in the 68-team field by the NCAA selection committee, four spots ahead of a Colorado State team that got an eighth seed despite finishing two places higher in the Mountain West.
They got a Friday game instead of Thursday, giving them an extra day of practice before the cross-country trip.
They got a late-night East Coast tip time instead of their body clocks trying to play at 9:40 a.m., as they did a year ago in a 79-65 loss to North Carolina State in Columbus, Ohio.
They got a team in Oklahoma (20-11) that isn’t terribly big, that is rated lower in all the major computer metrics, that has zero NCAA Tournament experience on its roster, that also finished fourth but in a weaker conference, that closed the season by losing a No. 234 RPI TCU and then blowing a 14-point lead in a 73-66 loss to Iowa State in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Tournament.
A team that, in many respects, they are built to defeat.
Kruger becomes the first coach to take five different Division I programs to the NCAA Tournament, and Fisher has coached against him during his stops at Illinois and UNLV. He’s 14-6 overall against Kruger, but the most interesting stat is this: Fisher has won eight of the last nine meetings and the last five straight.
After Kruger’s UNLV teams won two straight and three of the four from the Aztecs in 2007 and 2008, Fisher and his staff tweaked their offense with only one opponent in mind. In the past, the Aztecs entered their halfcourt sets with passes to the wing or a high ball screen. Kruger’s teams would apply fierce pressure on the ball as it crosses midcourt while aggressively denying passes to the wings.
“We couldn’t get into our sets against them,” SDSU associate head coach Brian Dutcher said. “We couldn’t make a wing entry, and they double-teamed our ball screens hard. We were like, ‘We can’t run offense.’
“All the high post entries we run now are the direct result of Lon Kruger’s pressure defense, to find a way to beat UNLV, which at the time was the best team in the conference. We said, ‘The one guy we can hit is the high post. We’ll just start the offense that way.’”
Kruger would leave two years ago for a seven-year, $16.6-million contract at Oklahoma that includes two complimentary cars, six season tickets to Sooners football games, the use of a private jet, and travel accommodations for his wife on road trips. But the high-post entries that initiate many of SDSU’s offensive sets remained, even though no current team in the Mountain West plays similar pressure halfcourt defense.
In other words: The Aztecs won’t have to overhaul their offense on short notice should Kruger unleash his signature defense Friday.
“Lon is a terrific defensive basketball coach,” Fisher said. “Everywhere he’s been, his teams have played exceptional defense. I’d assume this team is cut from the same cloth.”
If there is a down side to the draw, it is that they would face No. 2 Georgetown on Sunday just an hour or so from the Hoyas’ campus – a potentially nightmarish matchup for the undersized Aztecs. Georgetown is among the biggest teams in college basketball, with eight players 6-8 or taller on the roster (and at times starting four of them).
Another downer: SDSU has now reached four straight NCAA Tournaments, and for the third time they’ll spend the opening weekend in the Eastern time zone with few fans. Three years ago it was Providence, R.I.; last year it was Columbus, Ohio. Now a team that rarely plays east of Albuquerque is headed 2,360 miles away to Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center.
“I’ve never been to the East Coast, period,” forward JJ O’Brien said. “I’ve been to Chicago, and that’s it.”
On Friday, one of them will be congratulating the other on the biggest win of the season. Seventh-seeded SDSU and No. 10 Oklahoma meet in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament, Friday at approximately 6:20 p.m. in Philadelphia.
“Everybody always says they’re friends,” Fisher said. “But Lon and I really are friends. Our wives are friends. We enjoy each other’s company. When we go on the Nike (coaching) trip, we find ways to get together, to have lunch or dinner together with our wives.
“You’d rather not play someone you have an affinity for. I’d like to have Lon Kruger go deep in the tournament. But one of us is going home after the first game.”
Otherwise, though, Selection Sunday was kind to Fisher and his 22-10 Aztecs.
They got the No. 7 seed in the South Region and avoided, as most bracketologists had forecast, the dreaded 8-9 line where you get the No. 1 seed in the second game and historically over the last 10 years have a 1-in-20 chance of surviving the first weekend.
They were rated a respectful 26th in the 68-team field by the NCAA selection committee, four spots ahead of a Colorado State team that got an eighth seed despite finishing two places higher in the Mountain West.
They got a Friday game instead of Thursday, giving them an extra day of practice before the cross-country trip.
They got a late-night East Coast tip time instead of their body clocks trying to play at 9:40 a.m., as they did a year ago in a 79-65 loss to North Carolina State in Columbus, Ohio.
They got a team in Oklahoma (20-11) that isn’t terribly big, that is rated lower in all the major computer metrics, that has zero NCAA Tournament experience on its roster, that also finished fourth but in a weaker conference, that closed the season by losing a No. 234 RPI TCU and then blowing a 14-point lead in a 73-66 loss to Iowa State in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Tournament.
A team that, in many respects, they are built to defeat.
Kruger becomes the first coach to take five different Division I programs to the NCAA Tournament, and Fisher has coached against him during his stops at Illinois and UNLV. He’s 14-6 overall against Kruger, but the most interesting stat is this: Fisher has won eight of the last nine meetings and the last five straight.
After Kruger’s UNLV teams won two straight and three of the four from the Aztecs in 2007 and 2008, Fisher and his staff tweaked their offense with only one opponent in mind. In the past, the Aztecs entered their halfcourt sets with passes to the wing or a high ball screen. Kruger’s teams would apply fierce pressure on the ball as it crosses midcourt while aggressively denying passes to the wings.
“We couldn’t get into our sets against them,” SDSU associate head coach Brian Dutcher said. “We couldn’t make a wing entry, and they double-teamed our ball screens hard. We were like, ‘We can’t run offense.’
“All the high post entries we run now are the direct result of Lon Kruger’s pressure defense, to find a way to beat UNLV, which at the time was the best team in the conference. We said, ‘The one guy we can hit is the high post. We’ll just start the offense that way.’”
Kruger would leave two years ago for a seven-year, $16.6-million contract at Oklahoma that includes two complimentary cars, six season tickets to Sooners football games, the use of a private jet, and travel accommodations for his wife on road trips. But the high-post entries that initiate many of SDSU’s offensive sets remained, even though no current team in the Mountain West plays similar pressure halfcourt defense.
In other words: The Aztecs won’t have to overhaul their offense on short notice should Kruger unleash his signature defense Friday.
“Lon is a terrific defensive basketball coach,” Fisher said. “Everywhere he’s been, his teams have played exceptional defense. I’d assume this team is cut from the same cloth.”
If there is a down side to the draw, it is that they would face No. 2 Georgetown on Sunday just an hour or so from the Hoyas’ campus – a potentially nightmarish matchup for the undersized Aztecs. Georgetown is among the biggest teams in college basketball, with eight players 6-8 or taller on the roster (and at times starting four of them).
Another downer: SDSU has now reached four straight NCAA Tournaments, and for the third time they’ll spend the opening weekend in the Eastern time zone with few fans. Three years ago it was Providence, R.I.; last year it was Columbus, Ohio. Now a team that rarely plays east of Albuquerque is headed 2,360 miles away to Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center.
“I’ve never been to the East Coast, period,” forward JJ O’Brien said. “I’ve been to Chicago, and that’s it.”
