By Matt Weiner (@mattweiner20) – Basketball Beat Reporter
Photo of SJSU men’s basketball head coach Tim Miles on the sidelines | Titus Wilkinson of The Spear
San Jose State head coach Tim Miles felt the sting of a storied season ending prematurely.
What he suspects he’ll feel later this week is boredom.
“I think that’ll hit me in a couple days when I don’t have to plan practice,” said Miles after No. 2 seed SJSU was upset by No. 10 seed Radford 67-57. “Maybe it’ll hit me to check out Netflix one of these days.”
Basketball coach by occupation and fine-tuner by nature, Miles has nothing left left to prepare for.
“Radford really did what we’ve done to a whole bunch of teams this year. They got us in the paint and they got us on the glass,” said Miles.
All seven-footer Ibrahima Diallo could do was rest his arms on his knees from the bench and watch what Miles described play out.
Before he was in a dilapidated stationary position, Diallo was rising high for alley-hoop lob from sophomore point guard Alvaro Cardenas, an image from an NBA Jam video game. As tailor made as a dunk could be. Or so it seemed.
Diallo clunked the ball off the back iron and his already mangled left ankle landed on a Radford Highlanders’ shoe.
Down went Diallo with six minutes left in the first half. Down went SJSU’s program-bolstering paint presence.
“At the end of the day, they kind of got what they wanted in the paint in the second half,” said Miles.
Radford’s Shaq Jules scored 10 points on a perfect 5-for-5 day which included three dunks and one tip-in as the Highlanders outscored the Sparans 34-24 in the paint, 16-7 on second chance points while outrebounding SJSU 40-35 and 14-11 on offensive rebounds.
Just two days earlier, SJSU dominated No. 15 seed Southern Indiana (16-17) in all muscle categories:
Rebounding: 49-25
Offensive rebounding: 18-8
Points in the paint: 36-16
Second chance points: 15-3
Diallo pitched in just two paint points and one offensive rebound, but SIU couldn’t handle what sophomore power forward Robert Vaihola and fifth-year senior forward Sage Tolbert threw their way.
On Monday, Vaihola went 4-for-9 with eight points, 11 rebounds and six offensive boards and was often cleaning up his own missed put backs around the glass.
“All of our centers and forwards had what I thought were pretty easy opportunities to capitalize on second shots and we missed a whole bunch of those tonight,” said Miles.
Tolbert wasn’t the Cirque du Soleil high-flying and eye-catching scorer who put up 20 points in SJSU’s first-ever Mountain West Tournament win over Nevada in Las Vegas.
He finished with six points on 1-for-8 shooting and was 0-for-3 from three.
Tolbert along with Vaihola and Diallo’s paint presence have culminated into SJSU ranking fifth nationwide in rebound margin. It’s helped SJSU rise above its heavy reliance on senior point guard Omari Moore and lack of three-point shooting.
And for Moore, who likely played in his final game as a Spartan, finished with 17 points, but scored just two points – both on free throws – in the final 10 minutes of the game.
The reigning Mountain West Player of the Year couldn’t pull off one of his patented second-half performances. While SJSU was up 32-30 with 17 minutes left, he turned the ball over leading to a drained three from Radford’s Souleymane Koureissi to cap off an 8-0 run and the Spartans trailed until the end.
Radford’s lead oscillated between three and seven and was at one point cut to 47-46 with six minutes left following an 8-0 run from the Spartans. But SJSU’s interior defense allowed a layup to Koureissi and after a three from Onyebunchi Ezeakudo, the Spartans never came within three points.
SJSU’s demise wasn’t officially ended until Radford’s Kenyon Giles ripped off a step-back jumper making the score 58-52 with 2:25 left after junior shooting-forward Tibet Gorener nailed a three to make it a four-point game. But Giles had one more dagger left, this time sinking a deep three, extending the lead to 61-52 with 1:31 left.
Gorener returned the favor with three another three, cutting the game to six, but Jules’ ended all hopes with an arena-rattling slam dunk off a blown assignment with 41 seconds left.
Other than Gorener, who was SJSU’s second-leading scorer with 11 points, the Spartans’ lacked a robust scoring threat.
Alvaro Cardenas, who scored a career-high 22 points in SJSU’s quarterfinal win, finished 2-for-10 with just four points.
It wasn’t the illustrious ending to an illustrious career that Moore and SJSU fans had hoped-for.
“I’m just grateful for his two years here and a chance to coach him and hopefully make him better,” said Miles.
“That’s a relationship that we get to have for the rest of our lives. And I’m excited for his future, whether that be at San Jose State or that’s playing professional basketball.”
Many have caught wind of SJSU’s vortex of unimaginable accomplishments led by Miles.
How they’ve managed to go from 8-23 a year ago with one conference win a year ago to tying the school’s single-season win record of 21. Or, how they’ve risen to a top-100 NET ranking despite finishing last year 333rd.
Even in print it seems unimaginable.
“This team established themselves as one of the finest teams in San Jose State history,” Miles said, ‘Like first time ever doing this and doing that there’s a dozen of those things.’”
But now there are no more “firsts” left to chase for the 2022-23 Spartans.
That’ll have to wait until next October.
Miles is already in the process of planning for it.
“We’ll travel back tomorrow, as a staff we’ll discuss what our team needs are going to be and we’ll start recruiting. I think we already have scholarships available and we’ll have to get in the transfer portal and get working.”