San Diego State’s Jaedon LeDee delivers crawfish, big buckets in Final Four win at home

Playing a Final Four in your hometown means teammates turning to you for food recommendations. Jaedon LeDee, a product of The Kinkaid School, came through in a big way on that front, making sure the entire San Diego State team got treated to a crawfish boil on Thursday. Two nights later, LeDee delivered again.

San Diego State’s 72-71 win in Friday’s national semifinal at NRG Stadium will go down in history as the Lamont Butler game. It was Butler’s jumper at the buzzer, after all, that pushed the Aztecs into the national title game, but it was LeDee who hit two key buckets in the final 66 seconds that set up his teammate’s heroics.

“I feel like I’m confident in big moments,” said LeDee in a celebratory Aztecs locker room after scoring 12 points despite being limited to just 14 minutes because of foul trouble. “I’m a guy who tries to do his job and remain calm no matter what’s going on around me.”

That cool demeanor was exactly what San Diego State needed as it trailed Florida Atlantic by 14 points with 15 minutes left. San Diego State chipped away and was nearly all the way back, but still trailed 69-66 with 1:20 remaining. That’s when the Aztecs went to LeDee — who isn’t necessarily known as an offensive force, coming off the bench to average 7.8 points per game — on two straight possessions.

The 6-9, 240-pound forward got the ball in the paint for an easy basket to cut the deficit to one with 1:06 left. The Owls pushed the lead back to three, but LeDee got it right back when he received the ball at the top of the key and calmly sank a jumper.

“He stays in the fight,” said San Diego State’s starting point guard Darrion Trammell, who raved about the crawfish feast from earlier in the week. “Jaedon can go on his own scoring run at any time in the game, and that’s what he did there down the stretch. He has that confidence and swagger, so we went to him. We felt like with his size, he had a mismatch and he delivered big buckets for us.”

Those buckets set up Butler’s game-winner and gave the Aztecs’ the fifth-largest comeback in Final Four history.

“It just always felt like, ‘We’re gonna win this game,'” LeDee said of his team’s persistent optimism even while down 14. “We have a lot of tough dudes in here, a lot of tough dudes, and we just felt like we weren’t done yet.”

As LeDee, who played one season at Ohio State and two at TCU before heading to the West Coast, is quick to point out to anyone — teammates included — he’s from Houston, and that gives him a little bit extra toughness.

“My family is full of tough people,” LeDee said. “We’re from Houston, we’re never going to lay down for anything.”

That toughness was put aside for a moment when LeDee smiled at the thought of the quick celebration he was going to have with family and close friends Saturday night as soon as he got done with his media requirements, but then his more stoic face returned when he thought about what was on deck.

“We’re going to celebrate it tonight, don’t get me wrong,” LeDee said, “but we’ve got one more step to take.”