Aztecs dominate Furman 75-52 to reach Sweet 16
SDSU's Micah Parrish helped pace a balanced scoring attack in Aztecs 75-52 win on Saturday in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
San Diego State had little trouble ending the run of March Madness darling Furman, getting 16 points from Micah Parrish to pace a balanced scoring attack and pulling away for a 75-52 win on Saturday in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
Darrion Trammell had 13 points, Lamont Butler added 12 and leading scorer Matt Bradley finished with 10 for San Diego State (29-6), which is heading to its first Sweet 16 since 2004. The Aztecs have won 11 of their past 13 games and will play Alabama on Friday at 3:30 p.m. in Louisville, Kentucky.
San Diego State is the first Mountain West Conference team to reach the Sweet 16 since Nevada in 2018. It'll be the third regional semifinal appearance for the Aztecs and the seventh for the Mountain West overall.
Two days after shrugging off cold shooting and overcoming a 12-point, second-half deficit to shock No. 4 seed Virginia 68-67 on JP Pegues' bracket-busting 3-pointer, Furman was outmuscled and gradually worn down by the much more physical Aztecs.
Southern Conference player and the year Jalen Slawson picked up his fourth foul with 16:27 remaining and fouled out shortly after returning midway through the second half. The super senior stomped the floor in protest, drawing a technical foul that gave San Diego State a pair of free throws that put the Aztecs up 60-37.
Mike Bothwell led the 13th-seeded Paladins (28-8) with 15 points. Alex Williams had 11 and Pegues finished with 11 as Furman shot 32%, including 6 of 26 from 3-point range.
NOTES
San Diego State owns the sixth-best record in the nation since the start of the 2009-10 campaign, 360-115 (.758), and is 161-90 (.641) road and neutral site contests in that time frame which is the seventh best in the nation.
The Aztecs came into its second-round game having won 11 of its last 12 (11-1) and 15 of its last 17 (15-2), with its two losses coming on the road at Nevada (14-2 at home) and at Boise State (14-1 at home), both which earned NCAA Tournament bids.
This is the program's 10th tournament appearance in the last 13 seasons that a champion has been crowned. That total does not include the 2019-20 season when SDSU was 30-2 and ranked sixth in the AP poll when the season ended prior to the tournament.
