Kemba Walker scored 36 points to lead UConn to a 74-67 win over San Diego State. Walker scored 22 of his 36 points in the second half.

A number of different Aztecs tried to guard Walker.

“We were going to vary who guarded him, go with Chase (Tapley) to start with either fatigue or success by Walker…We had it planned all along that Billy (White) was going to guard him for a good portion of the game,” SDSU coach Steve Fisher said. “But it didn’t matter who was guarding him, he was pretty effective today.”

Walker did all he did after missing his first four shots. Calhoun was asked if the other Huskies every worry when Walker starts slowly.

“He’s a friend. They love him but they follow him,” Calhoun said. “If he misses they don’t worry about that. They really don’t. They believe in him as much as I do.”

Kawhi Leonard said he does not need the NBA right now, and that he might return to San Diego State for his junior season.

“It’s tempting to come back,” said Leonard. “People like to have a winning team. It makes you want to keep playing.

“My family doesn’t need the money right now. We’re not starving, hungry, living poor. It will be nice to have a lot of money, but I think my family could hold out two more years if I play through my senior year.”

Leonard is averaging 15.6 points and 10.6 rebounds for the Aztecs.

With both BYU and San Diego State advancing to the Sweet Sixteen, the Mountain West Conference will distribute $1.7 million per year to its league members over the next six years.

“It gives us more money for the future,” said Chuck Lang, SDSU’s associate athletic director for business administration. “We have those shares for the next six years. That’s a good place to start.”

Each tournament game a team plays – excluding the championship – is worth at least $240,000 annually for that team’s league over a rolling six-year period, according to the NCAA’s distribution formula. With at least seven tournament games this year, the MWC will receive at least $1.7 million from this year’s bracket from 2011 through 2016.

The NCAA money comes from television and other sources, with the value of each game expected to grow annually. It’s a relative windfall for the MWC.

Of the $180.5 million in Division I basketball funds to be distributed this year, 63 percent goes to the six power conferences: the Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10, Southeastern and Atlantic Coast.

San Diego State will try to apply what worked against Jimmer Fredette against UConn's Kemba Walker.

“Hopefully,” Fisher said, “(that) will help us a little bit in terms of an initial thought process.”

The Aztecs can put size on Walker with 6-8 Billy White or 6-7 Kawhi Leonard. Plus, they possess a level of defensive sophistication that allows them to absorb game plans and make subtle tactical adjustments on the fly.

San Diego State has a half-dozen ways to defend ball screens in their man-to-man, from a simple switch to a hard double-team to less aggressively “corralling” the dribbler.

“You have to do a lot of different things against Walker on the ball screens, and not hang your hat on any one thing,” said TV analyst and former college coach Bill Raftery, who has worked several UConn games this season and will call Thursday’s for CBS. “What works one time might not work the next. Great players find ways. You just have to make them work for everything they get.”

NBA scouts and opposing coaches marvel at Kawhi Leonard’s long arms (his wing span is 7 feet, 3/8 inches) and freakishly large hands.

Leonard’s hands measure 9 3/8 inches from wrist to middle fingertip.

“If I get my hand on the ball, I feel like it should be mine,” says Leonard, who averages 10.6 rebounds and has 23 double-doubles (double figures in points and rebounds) in this season alone. “If I just deflect it, I get mad.”

They are his greatest asset and, some NBA scouts concede, perhaps his greatest liability.

Players with saucer hands traditionally have not been outstanding perimeter shooters (Julius Erving, Chris Webber, Shaquille O’Neal, Rajon Rondo), the theory being that it’s akin to a normal person trying to shoot a ping-pong ball. The ball can roll out of the hand’s shooting pocket too easily, something Leonard admits happening to him at times.

Jimmer Fredette of BYU, Jared Sullinger of Ohio State, and Kemba Walker of UConn are among 20 finalists for the John R. Wooden Award as men's college basketball player of the year.

The other finalists are Marshon Brooks (Providence), Alec Burks (Colorado), Norris Cole (Cleveland State), Kenneth Faried (Morehead State), Jordan Hamilton  (Texas), Ben Hansbrough (Notre Dame), Dwight Hardy  (St. John’s), JaJuan Johnson (Purdue), Kawhi Leonard (San Diego State), Jon Leuer (Wisconsin), E’Twaun Moore (Purdue), Marcus Morris (Kansas), Jacob Pullen (Kansas State), Kyle Singler (Duke), Nolan Smith (Duke), Jordan Taylor (Wisconsin), Derrick Williams (Arizona)

San Diego State avenged their only two losses of the 10-11 season by defeating Brigham Young in the title game of the 2011 Mountain West Conference Tournament.

Despite the loss, Jimmer Fredette was named Tournament MVP, scoring 106 points in three games.

Kawhi Leonard, D.J. Gay and Billy White of San Diego State joined Fredette on the All-Tournament Team, along with UNLV's Tre'Von Willis.

• Click here to view RealGM’s comprehensive list of 2011 Conference Tournaments.

Ohio State is the No. 1 overall seed in the 2011 NCAA Tournament and will be placed in the East Region.

Joining the Buckeyes No. 1 seeds is Kansas in the Midwest, Pittsburgh in the Southeast and Duke in the West.

Pitt is the only No. 1 seed to not win their conference tournament, losing to eventual champion Connecticut in the quarterfinals.

San Diego State, North Carolina, Notre Dame and Florida are the No. 2 seeds, while Syracuse, Purdue, Connecticut and BYU are the No. 3 seeds. Kentucky, Louisville, Texas and Wisconsin are the No. 4 seeds.

Kansas and Duke were also No. 1 seeds in the 2010 NCAA Tournament, while Ohio State was a No. 2 and Pitt was a No. 3.

The Final Four will be held in Houston on April 2nd and 4th.

• Click here to view RealGM’s 2011 NCAA Tournament Page.

BYU guard Jimmer Fredette, the nation's leading scorer with a 27.9 average, was named the Mountain West Player of the Year.

Also earning first-team honors: San Diego State’s Kawhi Leonard and D.J. Gay, Colorado State’s Andy Ogide and New Mexico’s Dairese Gary.

Jackson Emery of Brigham Young was named Defensive Player of the Year, Kendall Williams of New Mexico won Freshman of the Year and Drew Gordon was Newcomer of the Year.

• Click here for more award information from the Mountain West.

Jimmer Fredette has a fan in CBS’ Clark Kellogg.

“I’m certain there are a number of folks who tuned in [Saturday] because they had heard about his exploits and his brilliance as a player,” Kellogg said. “As much as we think cable TV is ubiquitous and DirecTV is in everybody’s house, it’s not. CBS is. There’s a number of eyeballs you get when you’re on CBS that you don’t get when you’re on The Mtn. network, Fox Sports or wherever else.”

The BYU-SDSU game drew a 2.0 rating/5 share. A rating point equals 1,159,000 households.

BYU-SDSU attracted higher ratings than the games that followed on CBS, including Syracuse-Georgetown (1.2/3) and Florida-Kentucky (1.7/4).