What Brian Dutcher, San Diego State players said after beating Colorado State in Mountain West Tournament

The San Diego State Aztecs played such good defense against Colorado State in their Mountain West Tournament quarterfinal that they went the last 6 minutes, 49 seconds without a field goal, missed several free throws down the stretch and still won 71-62 on Thursday night.

The victory moves the Aztecs into the semifinals on Friday night against New Mexico, which beat San Jose State.

“Getting a bye helped, and not only for legs, but we spent four days, no disrespect for Fresno … we spent four days getting ready for Colorado State,” coach Brian Dutcher said. “I think everyone could see we were pretty locked in defensively.”

SDSU (21-10) will face New Mexico for the third time this season at 9 p.m. PT Friday, and for the final time as MW rivals. The game will air on CBS Sports Network.

The winner advances to the championship game on Saturday on CBS, with the league’s automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament at stake.

Here are the highlights of Dutcher and the players’ news conference.

Dutcher on scoring 42 points in the paint while making just 1 of 11 3-pointers

“They did a good job taking away the three, so we weren't afraid to curl into the paint, drive into the paint, set ball screens, roll hard to the rim. We played around the rim. I mean, offensive rebounding-wise a lot of the plays I ran had two bigs on the blocks. That made it easier to rebound instead of running one in from the perimeter. We had some sets where we had bigs in the position to rebound. A little rebounding triangle going on. That was a success.”

Dutcher on bouncing back from late-season swoon

“Yeah, we lost four out of five in the stretch, and then we beat UNLV to end the year. We had enough time to kind of get ourselves together, and we needed this win desperately. I mean, we're still a bubble team, you know, so we can keep winning and play ourselves off that bubble. This was a quality opponent on a neutral floor, and we played well. So we have a good team, and we have to continue to show that tomorrow night.

Dutcher on going the last 6:49 without a field goal

“I would have liked to get a shot up, but they didn't even let us get across half court. They fouled anybody everybody and anybody. Everybody missed. Byrd missed. Reese missed. Tae missed. Heide missed. Magoon missed too. Just go down the list. It didn't matter who they picked. We didn't have anybody making them. It's a credit to our defense. You know, you miss free-throws, and you give in. All of a sudden you look up, and (it could have been) a two-point game, but we continued to get stops.

We got stops, no matter what happened at the foul line. We didn't let the frustration consume us where we didn't play good defense at the other end.”

Dutcher on the 43-31 rebounding edge

“We left this tournament last year to Boise, because we got destroyed on the glass. When we rebound the ball, we're hard to beat, so we rebounded the ball at a high level tonight both offensively and defensively.

So defensive rebounding wins championships. Unfortunately, so does free-throw shooting, but we escaped tonight with some bad free-throw shooting. I'm going to fire the free-throw coach, but it's me, so I'm going to give myself one more day to try to get it right.”

Guard Miles Byrd on the game plan

“We came into the game knowing the type of offense they like to run. Main focus was pressuring the quarterback, as we call it. A lot of guys end up at the top of the key, you know, with no dribble, trying to look for cutters and stuff like that. So just trying to pressure the quarterback, pressure them on the ball and take them out of their offense and make them uncomfortable.

Byrd on making just one 3-pointer and missing 20 free throws and still winning

“Yeah, just San Diego State. Defense and rebounding. I've heard that said plenty of times. We could have off-nights shooting. We have a drill in practice where we have to get, like, 130 points shooting-wise, and if we don't get it, we go defensive slide for five minutes. There's definitely going to be times where in games shots are not going in, and defensively we've got to be good enough where we can still win those games.”

Forward Pharaoh Compton on the effort

“I just think we did a good job being physical and disrupting them. Just really not

Compton on SDSU’s defense

“Our defense is everything for us, so just not letting them score, that's our identity. Every time we go down and just not letting them score, that's big-time.”