SAN DIEGO – Fresh off winning the Continental Tires Las Vegas Invitational last week, San Diego State men's basketball makes an abbreviated, two-game dip into Mountain West action this week starting with a game at Colorado State on Wednesday night.
NEWS AND NOTES (through games of Dec. 1)
-Continuing its best start since the 2010-11 Kawhi Leonard Sweet 16 team, San Diego State (8-0) plays its earliest conference game in the program's 99 seasons when the Aztecs travel to Fort Collins, Colo. to face Colorado State (6-3).
-Through Sunday's games, San Diego State was one of just 20 undefeated teams in the nation and the only one that resides in the Pacific Time Zone.
-San Diego State is off to just the fourth 8-0 start in program history (see chart below). On two of the three previous occasions the Aztecs have lost the ninth game of the season making the 2010-11 squad the only Aztec team in history to open 9-0 (that team won its first 20 games of the season).
-San Diego State's eight-game win streak is tied for the ninth longest in school history. The eight-game streak is one short of the Brian Dutcher era best nine game win streak set late in the 2016-17 campaign.
-San Diego State enjoys a narrow 43-41 series advantage and Brian Dutcher is 3-0 lifetime against the Rams.
-The Aztecs and Rams faced each other only once last season. The Aztecs won 71-60 in Fort Collins on Feb. 12, 2019.
-The Aztecs have won on their last two trips to Moby Arena under the direction of Brian Dutcher and is 10-4 in its last 14 visits; however, SDSU is just 13-26 at Fort Collins.
-Since Feb. 26, 2005, San Diego State is 10-4 at Moby Arena while the rest of the country has combined to go 67-150 (30.9 percent).
-Dutcher led SDSU teams have handed Colorado State two if their last 18 home losses.
-San Diego State is looking to win its first Mountain West Conference opener since the 2015-16 campaign when the Aztecs opened league play with a 70-67 victory at Utah State. Since then, SDSU has lost league lid lifters at Nevada (69-72, 2016-17), at Wyoming (69-82, 2017-18) and at Boise State (64-88 in 2018-19).
-San Diego State is opening conference play on the road for a fourth consecutive season.
-The Aztecs are 8-0 for just the third time in the last 34 seasons and this marks the first time in the 99 seasons of basketball that SDSU has opened the season 8-0 with all eight wins coming by at least five points.
-For the third consecutive week, the Aztecs are receiving points in the Associate Press Top-25 poll. The Aztecs last appearance in the Top-25 came in February of 2015. San Diego State, after a week's absence, is also receiving votes the USA TODAY Coaches' Poll.
-Early season metrics are fans of the Aztecs play this season. Through Sunday's games, San Diego State ranked 3rd in strength of record, 12th in Sagarin Ratings, 25th in BPI and 46th in KenPom (see below).
-Through Sunday, San Diego State was one of 20 undefeated teams in the nation.
-San Diego State is one of four undefeated teams that has won at least four games away from its home court this season (also: Auburn, Delaware, Liberty).
-With the 2019 Continental Tires Las Vegas Invitational championship in hand, amazingly, San Diego State has compiled a 33-12 record in games played in Las Vegas since the start of the 2009-10 season. Of those 44 games, 16 have been road games played at UNLV in the Thomas & Mack Center (SDSU has gone 12-4) , while the Aztecs are 21-8 in neutral site games in Sin City.
-San Diego State, with its 83-52 victory over Creighton, improved its active win streak to five games against Big East teams which is tied with Michigan State for the nationl lead.
-San Diego State has won its last five games against members of the Big East Conference, with all five of those contests played at neutral sites. SDSU posted wins over No. 20 Creighton in the Wooden Classic (86-80, Nov. 29, 2013), over No. 25 Marquette in the Wooden Classic (Dec. 1, 2013), over St. John's in the NCAA Second Round (76-64 on March 20, 2015), over Xavier in the Maui Jim Maui Invitational (70-74 on Nov. 20, 2018) and again over Creighton in the Continental Tires Las Vegas Invitational (83-52 on Nov. 28, 2019).
-Brian Dutcher won his 50th career game, 83-52 over Creighton, and improved to 50-24. When Dutcher first arrived on campus, he and then head coach Steve Fisher needed 103 games to reach 50 victories (50-53). Coach Dutcher is now 51-24 following the team's 83-73 win over Iowa in the championship game of the 2019 Continental Tires Las Vegas Invitational.
-San Diego State finished November with an 8-0 record and has wins in nine straight November games and is 18-4 in the month under Brian Dutcher.
-San Diego State improves to 2-0 while in the red on black uniforms that made their debut at San Diego on Nov. 20.
-Junior guard Malachi Flynn has exploded on the scene. Through eight games, the Washington State transfer leads the team in scoring (16.1), assists (5.3) and steals (1.6 spg). Flynn has 42 assists and just 11 turnovers, giving him an assists-to-turnover ratio of 3.8.
-Last week's Mountain West Player of the Week, senior forward Yanni Wetzell is playing the best basketball of his career. A transfer from Vanderbilt, Wetzell has reached double figures in five consecutive games for the first time in his 39-game career. In his last five outings, he has averaged 14.5 points, 6.2 rebounds and has connected on 29-of-40 field goal attempts (72.5 percent).
-Junior guard Jordan Schakel is off to a red-hot start. The long-range specialist has connected on 22 of his 40 three-point field goal attempts (55.0 percent). He has made 93 of his 224 career attempts from beyond the arc (41.5 percent). Through eight games, he is averaging 11.0 points and 3.8 rebounds. He has made at least four three-point field goals in four of eight games this season.
-Junior forward Matt Mitchell is once again averaging in double figures. Mitchell, who averaged 10.5 and 10.3 points in his first two seasons, is averaging 10.9 points, 4.3 rebounds, 1.8 assists and has eight steals this season.
FLYNN NAMED MW PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Malachi Flynn, a junior transfer from Washington State, was named the Mountain West Player of the Week for the week ending on Dec. 1. In three games, Flynn hit 19-of-40 from the floor (.475) averaging 20.0 points to go along with 3.7 assists, 2.7 rebounds, 2.3 steals and had a 1.6:1 assist to turnover ratio. In two games in the Las Vegas Invitational, he totaled 49 points on 15-of-27 shooting, including six threes, and had seven rebounds, seven assists and five steals. The Tacoma, Wash., native, led SDSU in scoring all three games and was the overall leading scorer in two of three contests the team played last week.
-Trailing by nine points starting the second half against Iowa in the LVI Championship game, Flynn went 8-of-13 from the field, 3-of-7 from distance and 9-of-9 from the line, scoring 28 points in the half, en route to being named the tournament's MVP.