San Diego St. stuns No. 23 Colorado St. 63-58 in MWC semi

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Trey Pulliam scored 11 points and had six assists to lead San Diego State to a 63-58 victory over No. 23 Colorado State in a Mountain West Conference semifinal Friday night.

The third-seeded Aztecs will face top-seeded Boise State in Saturday’s conference championship.

San Diego State (23-7) held off a late rally by the Rams, who erased a seven-point deficit with 1:23 left in the game to pull within two points twice.

Adam Seiko drained two free throws with 9.8 seconds for the Aztecs to make it a two-possession game and force the Rams to attempt an errant 3-pointer with time draining.

Seiko overcame a bleak 2-for-7 clip from the floor to score 10 points, including 5 of 8 from the free-throw line down the stretch.

David Roddy scored 22 points to lead Colorado State (25-5), while Isaiah Stevens added 21.

The Aztecs improved to 14-4 in the semifinal round of the event, and have won their last five semifinal games. San Diego State, which has won the Mountain West tournament a record six times will play for the tournament title for the eighth time in the last nine years.

Now on a 12-2 run heading into Saturday’s final, the Aztecs will be looking for a second straight revenge win. During its 14-game run, San Diego State’s only two losses came by one point on the road, at Colorado State and Boise State.

The Broncos swept the regular-season series against San Diego State.

Colorado State hit its first six shots of the game and used a 9-0 run over the first five minutes to open a 14-7 lead against the Aztecs, who shot just 28.6% (2 of 7) at that point. But following a timeout, San Diego State suffocated the Rams with little to no space, started denying the paint a little better, and hit seven straight shots to go on runs of 8-0, 13-1, and 17-5 to take a 24-19 lead.

After their red-hot start, the Rams missed 10 of their last 14 shots in the first half.

BIG PICTURE

San Diego State improved to 21-1 when leading at the half this season, and is now 104-12 when holding a lead at halftime under coach Brian Dutcher.

Colorado State, meanwhile, was also a second-half team this season outscoring opponents by an average of 5.6 points per game in the second half this season. The Rams outscored San Diego State 32-28 over the final 20 minutes on Friday, but it wasn’t enough.

UP NEXT

San Diego State: faces Boise State in Saturday’s championship game.

Colorado State: awaits a possible at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament.

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