Take on SDSU next season

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/mar/21/sdsu-has-eye-on-upper-echelon/

SDSU has eye on upper echelon



...No, we’re not that and probably won’t become that. But we’re starting to reach the point where we’re very interested. San Diego State coach Steve Fisher has seen to that. He’s a program builder, and people around here have taken notice.



The Aztecs played chest-to-chest with Tennessee on Thursday night before losing by three in their NCAA Tournament first-round match in Providence, R.I., and people around here watched. The Nielsen TV rating for that game in San Diego County was a 12, with a 20 share. What that means is one in five TVs turned on at that time had the game on.



When Fisher arrived here in 1999, he would have been lucky if one out of every five of the 1,500 people who attended games in person was watching while play was going on.



“We’ve been able to generate more interest and enthusiasm and passion from the administration, the fans, the students and the community,” said Fisher, who already was out of town yesterday on a recruiting trip. “We’re a fun team to follow, and now we’re expected to win, which is good.”



But the coach also knows where he is. And once you get something started here, good rarely is enough. The Aztecs have won. Three times he’s led them to the NCAAs. But they’ve been unable to get out of the first round. Everyone wants more. That includes Fisher.



My thinking is Fisher has to win more road games outside the Mountain West Conference to earn the respect of the NCAA Selection Committee, that the Aztecs might have been shunned altogether by the committee had they not defeated UNLV and won the conference tournament. The coach doesn’t think so.



“No,” he said. “I like to think we would have gotten in. Of course, I may have found out otherwise, after the fact. But I believe the prestige of our league has grown. Our RPI was up there (18th following the UNLV win). After we lost to BYU (on Feb. 24), our RPI actually went up.



“But we’ve got to get into the top 1, 2, 3 in our league every year. That’s hard to do, because it’s a good league. Obviously, we’d like to win more out-of-conference games (the 71-63 loss at Pacific on Nov. 15 was particularly damaging); it helps with perception. We’ve got to schedule right and find a way to win our league. If we can get up there, we’ll always have a great chance to get in the NCAA Tournament.”



Those chances will be enhanced if the NCAA expands. Consensus has it that ESPN is going to take over television rights from CBS and wants a 96-team tournament.



“I don’t have a clue if it will happen,” Fisher said. “I know it will be money-driven. I always thought the greatest thing going was a 64-team tournament, but if I had a vote, I’d vote for expanding it — by four, eight, 16 teams, whatever. It would enhance our opportunity to get in. We’re selfish; we want to get in.



“Once you get in, anything can happen. You’ve got to be a little bit lucky. We weren’t. Other teams were.”



If everything goes right, it’s hard to believe the Aztecs won’t be very good this year. Fisher played just one senior — guard Kelvin Davis — so the likes of Kawhi Leonard, Billy White, Malcolm Thomas and D.J. Gay all return, as do three-point specialist James Rahon, who redshirted this year, and (hopefully) highly skilled Tim Shelton, whose knees have betrayed him.



Not to put extra pressure on Fisher, but I see a Top 25 team here next winter. The next Aztecs team must shoot better, and that’s what cost this bunch, as Fisher so painfully saw in Providence and in other ports this season.



“We’re going to have great competition, greater depth and we should shoot better — if everybody comes back, and I’ve been around long enough to know that you never know,” he said. “But we could have things we didn’t have this year. We have to get stronger in the weight room, and we have to be a better shooting team.”



Fisher doesn’t want his kids to forget how they went out.



“It gnaws at your insides,” he said. “We feel we still should be playing, but we’re not. I’m in the car listening to Tennessee play Ohio. That could have been us playing Ohio.



“Our community wants more, and that’s good. We’ve got a good thing going. We need to keep it going.”



Going up that next step is hard. But you can feel it now. It will be taken.