San Diego State Basketball: 3 keys to beating Florida Atlantic in the Final Four

Selection Sunday comes and goes in the middle of March, giving us the NCAA Tournament bracket and showing us which teams are playing where and when in that great postseason event. Obviously, nothing happens for most of those teams on Selection Sunday, the real work begins a few days later in the opening rounds of the NCAA Tournament, but you still can’t take that day for granted.

If you go back just three years ago, we didn’t get a Selection Sunday. The pandemic canceled the sporting world and put college basketball to a screaming halt just days before this glorious Tournament was ready to be selected. There were some teams in fantastic shape back in 2020 that could’ve made serious noise in the NCAA Tournament, but they never got that shot. San Diego State was one example of that, with an impressive 30-2 record during that season, but they’re making up for lost time three years later.

The Aztecs were given a 5-seed during this year’s Selection Sunday and have taken full advantage of their opportunity to actually play in the NCAA Tournament. Not only did the Aztecs get sixth-year head coach Brian Dutcher his first ever Tournament win, but the Aztecs kept winning, pulling off four wins the last two weekends and making the first Final Four in program history. It’s a historic run for this Aztecs program, becoming the first-ever Mountain West team among the Final Four.

However, San Diego State is not satisfied with just making the Final Four, however great an achievement that it is. These Aztecs came here to win, and that continues into the third weekend of the NCAA Tournament. San Diego State has quite an intriguing matchup against 9-seed Florida Atlantic, another mid-major on an incredible and historic postseason run. Today, we’ll be looking at a few keys for the Aztecs as they look to get this historic win and propel themselves into the title game next Monday.