By: Matt Weiner (@MattWeiner20) – MBB Beat Reporter
San Jose State men’s basketball has been put through the ringer to open up Mountain West play, losing three straight contests in blowout fashion.
The Spartans’ average margin of defeat against Fresno State, Colorado State and UNLV sits at a staggering 27 points and none of those games were remotely close down the final stretch.
SJSU has been down by at least 14 heading into the final five minutes of each aforementioned game.
Pummelings by Fresno State and Colorado State can be taken with a grain of salt. They played on the road against a Fresno State team that has yet to drop a game at home and had to face Orlando Robinson who is now becoming a familiar face in 2022 NBA mock drafts.
Then the Spartans had to jump out the frying pan into the fire by facing a vengeful Colorado State team who was less than a week removed from its first loss of the season.
Head coach Tim Miles and the Spartans can stomach those losses, but Monday night’s defeat to UNLV was different. By no means are the Runnin’ Rebels a slouch, they just aren’t on the upper echelon of the Mountain West.
They beat the brakes off of lesser teams like University of New Mexico and Hart University while getting their brakes beaten off by a phenomenal UCLA team. They even played Fresno State down to the wire before losing Friday night.
It was a perfect litmus test to see if the Spartans could correct their recent woes against the Bulldogs and Rams.
Early on it appeared that they at least fixed their ability to shoot the ball from three starting out 7/10.
After an outrageous 70 percent in their first 10 shots, they missed six in a row and ended the game at 12/32.
“I was joking tongue and cheek with Kevin Kruger [UNLV head coach] before the game … we can make 15 threes and not score 65 points,” Miles said.
Miles’ pregame quip was nearly prophetic as the Spartans were three 3-pointers shy of his prediction.
The Spartans’ identity around the three balls stems from their personnel.
TIbet Gorener and Shon Robinson were the tallest players in the starting five Monday both standing at 6-foot-9. Both have slender frames that disable them from being a down-low-matchup nightmare and causes a raucous near the glass for most teams. When they combine for 1/8 from three then the offense hits major dry spells. A mere seven points were scored in the first 13 minutes of the second half.
I’d be remiss not to mention Myron Amey’s scoring bonanza in the final seven minutes against UNLV.
Amey was a man possessed by a furious concentration, scoring 20 points and tying a career high five 3-pointers while going on an 11-0 run by himself at one point.
Time will tell if he is the spark plug the Spartans desperately need to right the ship.
It’s worth noting that righting the ship is a slow collective effort in bite-size pieces.
“We feel like we have 10 problems,” Miles said after the loss to UNLV. “You can’t solve all 10 of those. Cut your problems in half and then attack those.”