The Nike Elite basketballs that San Diego State normally uses have been stored at the bottom of the rack for the past week. At the top are six brand new, bright orange Wilson Evo balls that they ordered from Amazon.

That’s because the Players Era Festival uses Wilson balls, just like the NCAA Tournament.

And the Aztecs don’t want to make the same mistake that teams made at the Champions Classic in Atlanta earlier this month. Kentucky spent the week practicing with the Spalding ball (the event was contracted to use) and shot 40% on 3s and won; Michigan State and Duke reportedly didn’t, shooting 12% and 17% respectively and losing.

As for the city and the opponent in Tuesday morning’s opening game of the eight-team event, they know them well.

Las Vegas is the second home of SDSU basketball. The Aztecs have played here 73 times since the 2009-10 season, winning 57 times between annual regular season games at UNLV, the Mountain West Tournament at the Thomas & Mack Center and non-conference events like this one.

And their opponent at the MGM Grand Garden Arena at 11 a.m. on TBS?

Let’s just say SDSU and Creighton have some history.

They are 1,300 miles apart and belong to different conferences. One is a public university on the Pacific coast, the other a private and church-based university in Omaha, Neb. One is known for its defense, the other for its offense. One wears scarlet and black, the other blue and white. And yet this is the sixth time they have played since 2011.

“Someone we know very well,” coach Brian Dutcher said. “A known enemy.”

Creighton coach Greg McDermott is closing in on his 500th career win and was recently asked to list his top 25.

Two came against the Aztecs: the 85-83 victory at Viejas Arena in 2011 after trailing by 17, and the 72-69 overtime win in the 2022 NCAA Tournament in Fort Worth, Texas, after trailing by nine within 2.30 hours to enter. regulation.

Aztec fans will remember the others more fondly: 86-80 in the 2013 Wooden Legacy in Fullerton after trailing 14-2; the 31-point shellacking in the 2019 Las Vegas Invitational down the road at Orleans Arena; and of course the most recent meeting in the 2023 Elite Eight in Louisville, Kentucky.

That was decided with 1.2 seconds left, when Darrion Trammell made a controversial foul in the lane and sank a free throw for a 57-56 win that sent the Aztecs to the Final Four for the first time in program history .

McDermott took the high road when asked afterward about the call, a sign of respect between programs gracious enough to share a charter flight to the Maui Invitational earlier that season.

“Two teams played their tails off and being a referee is part of the game,” McDermott said in Louisville. “We’re not going there. We lost the game because we didn’t do enough, and San Diego State did.”

No one who played for SDSU that day is still on the roster. Three Creighton players did, and only Ryan Kalkbrenner got more than three minutes.

Yes, he is still studying.

It’s his fifth season and Tuesday will be his 140th career game (and 109th career start). He’s 7-foot-1. He’s a preseason All-American. He had 49 points in the opener against Texas-Rio Grande Valley.

And then Friday night against rival Nebraska … he took one shot in 39 minutes.

It was a puzzling turn of events in a 74-63 home loss that sent the Bluejays tumbling from No. 14 to 21 in the Associated Press poll, and one that could have repercussions Tuesday in Las Vegas.

The Cornhuskers lined up in front of Kalkbrenner in the post and provided aggressive help at the back to deter the lob over the top.

The risk: They left the perimeter shooters open.

The reward: The Bluejays went 12 of 42 from behind the arc and had 17 turnovers trying to force the ball inside.

“When you get open shots, you have to live with it,” said Kalkbrenner, who finished with four points in 39 minutes, all from free throws. “They can trust me with five people, and if they give up wide-open threes, I don’t care if I shoot. Next time we have to take them down, and we will. We have a lot of good shooters on this team. I have confidence in them.”

Your move, Coach Dutcher.

Do you steal the blueprint and hope the Bluejays haven’t been practicing with the sticky Wilson balls? Or are you trying to cheat McDermott by getting your young bigs to try something unexpected?

“They’re going to spend the next three days (since the Nebraska loss) looking at how they didn’t get it to him and finding ways to do that,” Dutcher said. “I’m sure this will be their point of emphasis: he got one chance. We could play the same defense as Nebraska, and Nebraska could play them again today, and they would find a way to get him for more than one shot.”

One person who likely won’t pass the Wilson ball to Kalkbrenner is fifth-year senior point guard Steven Ashworth.

He’s also a familiar foe, having faced the Aztecs in three years at Utah State before transferring to Creighton last season and using his extra ‘Covid’ year there this season. He landed on the foot of a Nebraska player in the second half, rolled his right ankle and was helped off the floor in tears.

“It’s tightened up pretty good,” McDermott said. A school official has since said Tuesday that Ashworth is questionable.

That comes at the expense of 16 points, 6.4 assists and 23 of 23 free throws from the lineup, mitigating the significant experience gap facing an Aztecs team that has six freshmen or sophomores in the rotation.

It also evens out the injury ledger. SDSU will be without conference guard Reese Waters for at least another month in the preseason.

“It’s hard to play short-handed,” Dutcher said. “Even though they’re still going to be good, they’re clearly better with him on the floor.”

The wild card, of course, is how his roster of freshmen, sophomores and rookies handles their first game together away from Viejas Arena, going from a crazy environment against No. 3 Gonzaga to an 11 a.m. tip-off in an empty hall where you can hear sneakers squeak.

“You never want to lose a game, especially this early,” sophomore winger Miles Byrd said of the 80-67 loss to the Zags. “But if you lose a game to the No. 3 team in the country, I don’t think you can really count that as a loss. It’s more of a lesson. We have seen what a top team in the country looks like. I think we’re there.

“We have some young guys who are still learning. I played, but obviously I didn’t play very well (zero points in 22 minutes). A few adjustments and we would have been right in that match. It was a good performance for us, but we have to keep improving.”

Originally published: November 25, 2024 at 5:59 PM PST