WBB Preview: Aggies Continue Search For MWC Breakthrough Against San Diego State

San Diego State started its season with eight straight wins before suffering a one-point loss to Providence. After that, the Aztecs got back on track for two more victories to get to a 10-1 start, positioning themselves as a likely contender in conference play. Their road has been bumpier since then, despite a win over a good Boise State team, with four league defeats in six tries and an overall 3-5 record since that strong start.

The Aztecs are led, as has been the case for several seasons, by former Aggie Adryana Quezada. Quezada was only at Utah State for one year after transferring in from UTSA, and she opted to depart for San Diego State after averaging 15.2 points, 7.9 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 1.1 steals per game in Logan.

Including its star, San Diego State has a lot of size, and knows exactly how to use it. Most of the team’s production comes from the paint, and most of its standouts are post players. Guard Veronica Sheffy is the main distributor and does a fair amount of scoring on the side, Naomi Panganiban lets it fly from deep and both Erin Houpt and Natalia Martinez add a few threes as well, but this team is defined by what it does in the paint, led by the three-headed monster of Quezada, Kim Villalobos and Cali Clark. The Aztecs have attempted 317 threes this season – while Utah State's Denae Skelton, Mia Tarver, CJ Latta and Cheyenne Stubbs (who missed a portion of the season), have combined for 311.

The matchup with the Aggies is interesting because the Aztecs are very slow, and they give up a lot of turnovers. The two teams represent opposite ends of the speed in the conference, with the Aztecs averaging 68.7 possessions per game and Utah State averaging 75.3. Both teams will be looking to control the pace, with the winner of that battle gaining a significant advantage in the contest.

The turnovers are something to keep an especially close eye on because of Utah State’s ability to turn teams over, which has only grown stronger in recent outings. The Aggies forced 15 turnovers against a very careful Colorado State team that averages 9.8 per game; 11 against Wyoming and 14 against Boise State. In their last matchup against Fresno State, the Aggie press forced seven turnovers in the first quarter alone and 14 by the end of the game.

Players To Know

Adryana Quezada: The Aggie-turned-Aztec has not been kind to her former team since her departure. In her return to the Spectrum last year, she dropped 20 points, eight rebounds and an assist. Later in the year when she hosted her former team in San Diego, she had a double-double with 13 points, 10 rebounds, a steal and two blocks. Both were only small parts of an excellent season, though, as Quezada posted 14 points, 6.4 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game and was named to the All-Mountain West Team.

Her performance has dipped slightly this year, although her last few games have been just fine. On the season she is averaging 11.7 points, 5.9 rebounds and 1.1 assists, but she’s posted three big performances in a row starting with a 20-point game against Nevada followed by nabbing 15 points, four rebounds and a steal against Wyoming. Most recently, she’s coming off a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds against Colorado State.

Out of herself ,Villalobos and Clark, Quezada is the smallest of the frontcourt bunch standing at just 5-10, but it doesn’t slow her down. She's the leader of the group – and the team – in scoring and is the team’s second-leading rebounder right in between Clark and Villalobos at the top. Her scoring is fueled by extreme efficiency. She is shooting 54.5 percent from the field and 81.5 percent from the charity stripe.

She’s a prolific scorer and rebounder, but her prowess doesn’t extend too far beyond that. She hasn’t blocked a shot since Dec. 11 and only has three assists and one steal since the start of conference play. On the season, she has just 19 assists, 17 steals and five blocks, with most of that coming early in the season against smaller schools like Bethesda, when she had five assists and five steals.

Kim Villalobos: The fifth-year six-footer from Los Angeles has found a nice home for herself on this Aztec team. After two years spent coming off the bench and playing rotational minutes, Villalobos has been a full-time starter for three seasons, and continues to excel in the role this winter.

Villalobos lives down low. Last year, she averaged 10.8 points per game without hitting a single three, and she's used only two makes from distance on her way to 1,141 career points. The 2023-24 season was her most productive year, but not necessarily her best year. Her scoring has dipped significantly this time around, but she’s a veteran leader on a 13-6 San Diego State team, and it would be hard to deny her contribution to that. She helps a team win, and has done so a lot in her career at San Diego State.

Part of her dip in scoring can be explained by the fact that she’s playing 3.5 fewer minutes and taking 1.5 fewer shots per game, leaving more room on offense for more dynamic scorers like Quezada, Panganiban and Sheffey. She’s an excellent role player, especially with how much time she spends in the post. She gets to the line more than any other Aztec, and has led the team in rebounds and assists multiple times this season as she continues to find ways to get to work and help her team win.

She's also still a threat to go off any any point, and the Aggies are no strangers to her eruptions. She had 13 points, four rebounds, three assists and a steal in one game and eight points, eight rebounds, six assists, three steals and a block in the other against the Aggies last year. For the season, she's averaging 7.3 points, 5.2 rebounds, 1.9 assists and 1.3 steals per game.

Cali Clark: Clark is San Diego State’s 6-3 grad transfer from conference rival Colorado State. She was fine in Fort Collins and played rotational minutes, but was largely overlooked in the Ryun Williams guard-heavy system. In the Golden State, however, she has flourished. As a senior for the Rams, she started in just six games and played 10.2 minutes per contest. For the Aztecs, she has started 11 games and is playing 21.7 minutes a night.

The bigger role has led directly to higher production. She is having the best year of her career with 7.2 points, 8.3 rebounds, 1.2 assists, 1.6 steals and 1.5 blocks per game. She is a tough, ferocious rebounder who can steal or block the ball on the defensive end, and she is fully deploying those skills with the Aztecs. She's leading her new team in rebounds, steals and blocks, and is sticking it to her old team with impressive spots on the conference leaderboards – she's third in the Mountain West in rebounds and blocks.

Clark is not a player you’d want to run into in the post on either end of the floor. She’s not dropping eye-popping scoring numbers, and there are a handful of Aztecs who present a larger threat on offense, but she’s extremely efficient when she goes to work. She is shooting 50.5 percent from the floor and 79.3 percent from the line. Like Villalobos, she helps lift the team not with pure scoring, but with just about everything else. She has great instincts and finely tuned ball skills, she's is a fantastic shot disruptor, and she'll be a major focus for the Aggies every time they attack the basket.