LAS VEGAS — Jaedon LeDee scored 22 points and San Diego State beat No. 18 Utah State 86-70 on Friday night to reach the final of the Mountain West Conference Tournament.
Lamont Butler added 16 points and Micah Parrish had 15 points for the Aztecs (24-9).
Great Osobor led the top-seeded Aggies (27-6) with 19 points and 10 rebounds while Ian Martinez scored 16 points and Isaac Johnson added 11.
San Diego State, the No. 5 seed, trailed by 17 in the first half but built a 69-56 lead with 8:12 left in the game led by LeDee, who scored 13 of his points during that span.
Both LeDee and Osobor were in foul trouble midway through the second half. Osobor picked up his third foul with 13:21 and sat out almost three minutes. LeDee picked up a third foul with 8:51, but stayed in game.
Osobor made one of two free throws to cut the Aztecs’ lead to seven, but LeDee made two free throws and Butler added another to build the lead back to 10.
LeDee fouled out with 2:03 but the Aggies never got closer than eight points.
For the second straight game in the tournament, Darrion Trammell hit a 3-pointer as the half ended to cut the Aggies’ lead to 39-36 at halftime.
Utah State led 34-17 when Osobor left the game with 6:22 left in the half. At that time, the MWC Player of the Year had 11 points. San Diego State immediately went on a seven-point run, sparked by a dunk by LeDee.
LeDee, who scored 34 points on Thursday against UNLV, played only eight minutes in the first half and scored five points.
BIG PICTURE
SAN DIEGO STATE: The Aztecs had only five points off their bench on Thursday against UNLV, but had five in the first half against Utah State. Reese Waters scored 11 points off the bench against Utah State.
UTAH STATE: The Aggies, under first-year coach Danny Sprinkle, finished as regular-season champions and will wait until Sunday to find out their their NCAA Tournament fate.
