July 12, 2001
SAN DIEGO - The San Diego State men's basketball program's amazing turnaround is chronicled in an issue of ESPN The Magazine, out this week.
Pete Thamel, a contributing writer for the magazine, interviewed Aztec coach Steve Fisher, Chris Walton and Tony Bland earlier this month, for a piece titled, "Up From the Dead".
At approximately 200 words, the article appears in the college basketball section, on page 106 of the magazine and includes a picture of Fisher and Walton.
San Diego State finished the 2000-01 season at 14-14, marking just the second .500 or better record for the Aztecs in the last 16 seasons. In Fisher's second season at San Diego State, the Aztecs were the eighth most improved team in the country, according to the Sagarin Ratings, and enjoyed a 73.3 percent attendance increase over the 1999-2000 campaign.
Steve Fisher's first full recruiting class at San Diego State in 1999-2000, was rated as one of the top-40 classes nationally and featured the The Sporting News Mountain West Conference Newcomer of the Year and United States Basketball Writers Association District 9 member Randy Holcomb.
The 2001-02 recruiting class has been referred to as one of the top 25 nationally by ESPN.com analyst Andy Katz and has been called the best in the conference and a top-25 class nationally by Chris Monter of Collegebasketballnews.com.
San Diego State returns eight of its top night scorers for the 2001-02 season.