Bracketology 2023: Fixing the flaws of 5 potential tournament teams

San Diego State Aztecs 6-2

San Diego State is 6-2 but could use a bit of a resume reset this week. It’s not because they haven’t been playing well, they have, it’s because they’ve struggled some offensively comparatively to earlier in the year. Since putting up 88 points in an emphatic win over Ohio State in Maui, they have averaged just 72 and won just once against Division I opponents. Compare that with the 81 they average in the first four games of the season, all wins and one could see why a regression could be concerning.

Seattle transfer Darrion Trammell began the year white-hot shooting 12-20 and 7-10 from deep in his first two games, but since then his numbers have dropped to 15-50 and 3-19 respectively. Conversely, though, fellow senior Matt Bradley began the year cold scoring just 21 points over the first three games on 11 shots per game. Since then, he’s averaged 15 points on 12 shots per game.

Brian Dutcher’s Aztecs will always play defense, but what made people stand up and take notice was the points they were putting up. Those numbers have declined recently and in order for San Diego State to reach its full potential, those offensive numbers need to rebound. Getting Bradley and Trammell going at the same time will be a big key here. Both are obviously high-level scorers but for the Aztecs, their numbers need to come from quality shots not a high volume of them.

According to shotquality.com, the duo are the only members of the rotation that had a higher bad shot percentage than good prior to their last win over Division III Occidental which has since skewed the numbers. If both players put up their numbers while taking high-quality shots, the Aztecs will undoubtedly climb back up the seed list.