Here’s how the NAIA University of Saint Katherine Firebirds opened the game against the team that reached the NCAA Division I championship game last season:

Made 3.

Made 3.

Made 3.

Suddenly, everything seemed magically possible, David raining (or was it reigning?) 3s on Goliath, an NAIA school that didn’t exist 13 years ago racing to a 9-2 lead in a 12,414-seat arena against a massive state school that has played men’s basketball for more than a century and routinely features one of the nation’s most suffocating defenses.

Could the Firebirds maybe, possibly, potentially …

Uh, no.

Final score: Aztecs 91, Firebirds 57.

The logic behind scheduling an NAIA school from San Marcos two days before hosting the Pac-12’s Stanford was to loosen their legs after a 10-day break between games for final exams.

Or put another way: Better to be rusty and trail 9-2 against a team whose starting lineup goes 5-foot-7, 5-10, 6-3, 6-4 and 6-6 than Thursday’s opponent that starts 5-10, 6-5, 6-7, 6-8 and 7-1.

The only problem with playing two days apart, of course, is if a player gets hurt. Or two do.

Darrion Trammell limped off after re-tweaking an ankle he rolled against UC Irvine. And Jay Pal was elbowed in the face and likely was headed for X-rays to determine if he broke his nose. Both are, at a minimum, questionable for Stanford with less than 48 hours to heal.

“The only thing that happened that was tough was we had a couple injuries,” coach Brian Dutcher said, “and that’s what you don’t want to have happen in a tune-up game.”

San Diego State forward Jaedon LeDee (13) goes up for a shot against Saint Katherine defenders.

(Meg McLaughlin/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Of less concern was Saint Katherine, even after its torrid opening sequence.

“They started the game,” Dutcher said, “you thought they were going to make every shot they took.”

The regression – or in the case of the Aztecs, progression – to the mean ultimately happened, and an 11-7 Firebirds lead became a 40-16 deficit. By halftime, it was a 30-point game.

“It was early,” Jaedon LeDee said. “We’ve been down a lot of times before. We know how to fight. We know how to just endure the storm. I wasn’t too worried.

LeDee returned to uniform after sitting out the last game, a nervy 63-62 win against UC Irvine on Dec. 9, with a sprained right elbow. He wore a protective sleeve, but the elbow certainly didn’t seem to bother him. He had SDSU’s first seven points and 12 of 14, finishing with 17 points on 7 of 11 shooting in an efficient 14½ minutes.

Also highly efficient was Reese Waters, who had 15 points after going 3 of 3 behind the 3-point arc. Trammell and Pal each had 10 points off the bench.

True freshman Miles Heide had his most productive game as an Aztec, and that was before halftime. In a mere six-minute shift, the 6-10 lefty had seven rebounds and the Aztecs were plus-18 with him on the floor – or a staggering plus-120 projected over a 40-minute game.

“Being able to go against Jaedon every day in practice has definitely helped,” said Heide, who finished with four points and nine rebounds in 12 minutes. “I get to learn from him. He’s like a big brother to me. I’m going to learn from my mistakes. They’re giving me minutes, so I’m going to take advantage of them.”

The Aztecs finished with a 50-25 edge on the boards and 19-2 in second-chance points.

Even crazier: Over a 12-minute stretch in the first half, Saint Katherine was outrebounded 21-2. Of 11 missed Aztecs shots, they retrieved nine of them. Seven offensive boards came in less than three minutes.

Demarshay Johnson Jr. had eight rebounds in 14 minutes. He and Heide had more offensive boards (eight) than the entire Saint Katherine team (five).

San Diego State guard Micah Parrish (3) goes up for a shot against Saint Katherine.

(Meg McLaughlin/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

The only drama in the second half was whether the NAIA Firebirds (9-3) could outscore the Div. I Aztecs (9-2) after trailing 52-22 at intermission. They cut it to 27, then went down 37 with 8½ minutes to go. Then Dutcher subbed in the walk-ons and gave them their most extended minutes in years, maybe ever.

Sophomore guard Maur Tablada scored 13 of his career-high 23 points in the closing minutes to bring Saint Katherine within 27 again. But SDSU walk-on Cam Lawin made a 3 and a long 2, and then pushed the margin to 30 again on a technical foul free throw because the Firebirds had (yes) six players on the floor in confusion over a mass substitution.

A tip-in by Johnson Jr. and two free throws from Cade Alger gave the Aztecs a 39-35 edge in the second half, although Dutcher likely won’t be pleased with nine turnovers and 35 points allowed over the final 20 minutes.

“The message was, ‘Let’s compete better in the second half,’” Saint Katherine coach Kevin Williamson said. “We gave up so many offensive rebounds in the first half. I think the second half was, how do we get a little bit tougher? How do we man up a little bit better against a super physical, tall team like them?

“If you can eliminate some of that, it will create fewer possessions for them and keep the game more competitive. That was more of our mentality the second half: Let’s keep this game as competitive as we can.”

Notable

Next up: Stanford at home on Thursday. Note the early tip at 6 p.m. on CBS Sports Network … This was the 34^th time since 2001-02 that SDSU has hosted a college team from San Diego County, and the 34^th Aztecs victory … SDSU has won 18 straight nonconference home games … No starter played more than Micah Parrish’s 18½ minutes … Lamont Butler (six points and three assists in 15 minutes) left briefly in the second half after getting hit in the nose …

The teams were a combined 27-29 from the line (9 of 9 by Saint Katherine, 18 of 20 by SDSU) … The student section chanted “5-foot-3, 5-foot-3” at Firebirds guard ElJay Gallegos, who is listed at 5-7 … The 91 points are not the season high. It’s 100 in the overtime win against Washington. But it was the season high for regulation … The scores of SDSU’s two previous games against Saint Katherine: 118-35 in 2013 and 83-41 in 2020.