San Diego State has UNM's attention, respect heading into Tuesday's rematch

There’s not a lot of reason to look back too much at what happened in the Pit on Jan. 11.

Sure, the Lobos did plenty of things right in that Saturday morning, network televised game — things they’d love to do again Tuesday night in Viejas Arena in a rematch with the San Diego State Aztecs.

But when it comes to preparing for the perennial power of the Mountain West, watching film from any one specific game really isn’t doing the scouting report justice.

“I mean, they’ve been extremely consistent over the last (almost) 30 years, starting with coach (Steve) Fisher and now coach (Brian) Dutcher does an amazing job of it,” UNM Lobos coach Richard Pitino said. “They recruit to it. That’s their identity. Amazing defense, length, physicality. They’re going to make you earn it.

“I say that with the utmost respect, I don’t expect a lot of surprises, and that’s a compliment to them.”

The Lobos (22-5, 14-2 Mountain West) know what they’re in store for in a sold-out Viejas Arena against the Aztecs (18-7, 11-5 MW).

Both teams are coming off eight-point losses in tough road environments — Utah State 79, SDSU 71 on Saturday in front of 10,270 fans in the Spectrum; Boise State 86, UNM 78 in front of 11,110 in ExtraMile Arena last Wednesday. Neither team has lost back-to-back games this season.

UNM has managed to win three of the past four in the series against SDSU and the Aztecs, for a change, are the team that appears to have a little more work to do to solidify itself as an NCAA Tournament at-large team. According to BracketMatrix.com, a site that aggregates 97 bracket projection sites, UNM is “in” the tournament on all 97 projections with an average seed of 8.81. SDSU is in 96 of 97 projections with an average seed of 10.27.

The at-large cutoff is expected to be in the 11-seed range, depending on how many unexpected teams win their conference tournaments and earn their league’s automatic berth into the tournament.

So while Tuesday may mean more to San Diego State, Pitino says he’s not about to change the approach the Lobos have taken all season — again reiterating the general sentiment that when you make one game mean more, you’re making other ones mean less.

“The approach never changes. It’s never going to change. I work very, very hard at that,” Pitino said. “I have a great belief in that. Is that right, wrong? I don’t know. But certainly, as you get later into February and into March and you understand that there’s big games, I get it, but I just try to remain extremely consistent with what we do.

“We know that playing at San Diego State will be very, very challenging. Boise (last week) clearly needed that game to get back into the NCAA Tournament picture. There’s a storyline for every game where you need it, the opponent needs it and you just try to block it out and remain very, very consistent.”

GWATH HURT: Presumptive Mountain West Freshman of the year Magoon Gwath, SDSU’s 7-foot forward, suffered a hyperextended knee in Saturday’s loss at Utah State and is unlikely to play Tuesday.

Gwath is averaging 8.5 points, 5.2 rebounds and 2.6 blocks per game. In the Jan. 11 loss to the Lobos, he had six points and four blocked shots.

LOBOS INJURY REPORT: While the Aztecs are expected to be without their talented 7-foot freshman forward, the Lobos are still uncertain whether they will be getting their starting forward, Mustapha Amzil, back after missing the past two starts, three of the past four games and playing for more than a month now hobbled with plantar fasciitis.

“I think he’s progressing,” Pitino said of Amzil, “but I cannot say for sure that he’s definitely going to play. We will look at it. It’s been about two weeks — pretty good rest. But you know, you don’t want him in pain by any means, either.”

Amzil this season is averaging 12.1 points and 5.5 rebounds.

In the Jan. 11 win over SDSU, he had 10 points, 11 rebounds, three blocks and two steals.