Miles Heide’s play the last two games helped propel the Aztecs to wins over USD and CA Baptist

Patience is a hard lesson to learn.

As an athlete at the collegiate level, every individual feels that they can bring something to the table. They believe in themselves and want to play. Waiting your turn can be a struggle for most.

However, it’s hard not to notice players that perform well after not making an impact earlier in the season. The “Next Man Up” mentality is what makes sports compelling. Unsung heroes can arise at any moment. This term isn’t always reserved for injuries. Sometimes, a player gets his moment to shine by practicing hard.

Miles Heide is showing signs of progression because he remained patient.

Heide understands San Diego State’s culture as one of the few returning players. The sophomore is a key contributor in rebounding and that is an important part of Aztec Basketball.

The season did not start how he wanted. Heide only played nine minutes in the season opener and did not score. He then scored six points and grabbed eight rebounds against Division III Occidental, which was a strong performance. Following that game, Heide scored just five points, grabbed 12 rebounds, and played only 39 combined minutes across five games.

His minutes started to go down, but Heide never gave up the hope that he would be needed to play crucial minutes for the team. Against USD and CA Baptist, Heide’s rebounding was a big part of the Aztecs pulling away and winning. He even played late in both games over Magoon Gwath and Jared Coleman-Jones because Heide grabbed rebounds in bunches.

Against USD, the sophomore grabbed nine rebounds with eight points on 4/5 shooting in 18 minutes (the most all season). Against the Lancers this past Wednesday, Heide scored 10 points on 5-5 shooting and had five rebounds (four offensive). The forward even recorded his first steal of the year.

“At the beginning of the season, the confidence wasn’t there,” Heide admitted postgame against CA Baptist. “The last two games, I feel like I got my confidence back, and I’m willing to go out there and play my role for the team and do whatever I can to help us win.”

If you can rebound, you will play. Head coach Brian Dutcher expressed that in his opening statement after the win against California Baptist.

“It was our rebounding that betrayed us,” Dutcher said postgame. “We work on rebounding every day. But we have to have better buy-in, and we have to have better rebounders on the floor—one of the two. We have to find a way to turn really good defense into possessions for us. So, we know that is an issue, and it’s just young bigs. We got young bigs that have to get better every day. The only negative of the game was rebounding.”

The Lancers out-rebounded SDSU 31-23.

“Yeah (Heide) was really good on the offensive glass,” Dutcher said when asked about his sophomore’s performance. “I thought at the end he was in there a lot when we couldn’t get the ball either. He has to do a better job on the defensive glass. (Gwath) had one or two rebounds, (JCJ) had one rebound or two, so our bigs are not getting five, six, seven rebounds like they are capable of?”

Basketball can be a funny sport sometimes. SDSU played a very good rebounding team when they defeated No. 6 Houston in Las Vegas for the Players Era Festival. Houston only had a 40-38 rebounding advantage.

There will be games down the road where rebounding will be needed to win the game late. If Heide can show that he can rebound when others can’t, then he will continue to earn minutes in crunch time.

Chris Spiering

Chris is a graduate of the University of San Diego. He is the former Sports Editor for the USDVista newspaper. Chris has covered the San Diego Loyal, and now covers San Diego State Men’s Basketball. He also contributes regularly about the Padres. Chris is an athlete and is a huge fan of San Diego sports.