The championship drought for the No. 1 overall seed in the men’s NCAA tournament will be extended for another year after No. 5 San Diego State upset top-seeded Alabama 71-64 in a sweet 16 stunner Friday night. The Crimson Tide became the ninth No. 1 overall not to win the title in the last nine tournaments, extending the untitled streak that began in 2014.
Standing tall, San Diego State took the punches of the mighty Alabama throughout the game, delivering Heumacher when needed to end the upset. After falling as much as nine points midway through the second half after a riot from the Crimson Tide, SDSU traveled together 42-16 in the final 11 minutes of the game as they made big shots on offense and Alabama at the other end ice cold conquered a victory.
Alabama was barely tested in the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament, with 21 and 22 point wins over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Maryland, respectively. Faced with a top-five defensive lineup in San Diego State, the Crimson Tide struggled to find shots from long range and were beaten on the stretch by the MWC juggernaut. His 64 points were the third fewest in a game all season, helped (or rather hurt) by a terrible 3-of-27 performance from 3-point range.
“Just with a good defensive rebound,” SDSU coach Brian Dutcher said on TBS after the game about how his team gutted it. “We played right, we won.”
For most of the season, Alabama fared as its star freshman Brandon Miller fared, and that was the case in the South Regionals semifinals — until his demise. Miller had one of his worst games of the season against SDSU. He finished with just nine points in 3-of-19 shooting and failed to catch a shot rhythm for most of the game.
San Diego’s top scorer Matt Bradley also struggled at the other end, but the Aztecs produced a great performance from transfer guard Darrion Trammell, a former Seattle star who led the game with 21 points and came alive in the second half . As they had all season, SDSU also relied on their defense to force Alabama’s typically efficient offense into hard (and often bad) decisions and contested shots. SDSU held Alabama to just 16 points in the last four tries without a field goal and in the last 11 minutes.
“They built a lead, we called a timeout at about the 12 minute mark. Then Darrion came out of the timeout and hit a 3 and a 2 and he kind of changed the momentum,” Dutcher said. “I just say to our boys, ‘Nothing’s going to be easy.’ The key to confidence is to be fearless and I thought we were fearless tonight.”
1. School history
San Diego State was the first Mountain West school to advance to the Elite Eight, earning their first-ever Elite Eight spot by beating the Crimson Tide. However, that was just a checkpoint and not the goal, as Dutcher seemed to explain after the game.
“We recruit, and we say our goal is to win a national championship,” he said. “We mustn’t be surprised if we have the opportunity to advance to the Final Four. We tell them that when we recruit them. We celebrate it, but we don’t overdo it.”
2. The fighting in Alabama in Sweet 16 continues
Alabama’s Elite Eight drought reached 19 years with its loss to San Diego State, taking the program to a pitiful 1-9 all-time in Sweet 16 games, the worst record in NCAA tournament history. Under coach Nate Oats, Alabama has twice appeared in the Sweet 16 and twice failed to advance to the Elite Eight in the past three seasons; Losing to UCLA in 2021 came into overtime by a 10-point margin.
“We’ve had an incredible year,” said Oats. “San Diego State is a really good team. When you get to the Sweet 16, all the teams are really good.”
Alabama’s struggles were at least partially credited to the struggles of its star, as Miller had nine points overall with 16 penalties from 19 shot attempts, his third-least in a game all season.
3. Darrion Trammell takes over
Brian Dutcher said after beating Furman in the second round that his San Diego State team could go from good to great if they could keep shooting consistently. His Aztecs, led by Darrion Trammell, did just that against Alabama to prove his point.
San Diego State’s defense was probably why she eventually won the game, but if Trammell didn’t show up as a scorer, she might stop dancing. He finished the tournament with 21 big points, including 12 in the second half, where he accounted for half of the team’s 3-pointers in the last 20 minutes of the game.
“I’ve been preparing for this all week,” said Trammell. “I knew what kind of coverage they were in as far as ball screens go. At this point in the year you have to have the confidence that you can get the shots you’ve been working on.”