SAN DIEGO – Award season rolls on and Monday three San Diego State men's basketball players and head coach Brian Dutcher were honored with National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) All-District 17 designation.
The NABC announced its Division I All-District teams and coaches, which include Malachi Flynn, Yanni Wetzell, Matt Mitchell and Dutcher.
Flynn and Wetzell are first-team honorees. Mitchell is a second-team performer and Dutcher is the District 17 Coach of the Year. Prior to this year, San Diego State had never had more than three NABC honorees in one season (2011, 2012 & 2014).
Dutcher earns his first NABC District Coach of the Year award and joins Steve Fisher, a three-time winner (2011, 2012 & 2014), as the only coaches in program history to have had the honor bestowed upon them. Flynn and Wetzell become the fifth pair of Aztecs to garner first-team All-District accolades from the NABC in the same season and the first pair since Jamaal Franklin and Chase Tapley in 2012.
Flynn, a 6-1, guard, finished the regular season averaging 17.6 points, 5.1 assists and 4.4 rebounds while shooting 44.7 percent from the floor, 37.2 percent from long range and 85.7 percent from the line. In league games, he was even more impressive. His scoring average went up to 18.9 points on 45.3 percent shooting including 34.7 percent from distance and 91.7 percent from the charity stripe in Mountain West play. Earning starting assignments in all 32 games this season, the junior scored in double figures 31 times and led the team the team in scoring and assists 21 times.
Nationally, Flynn finished the year ranked No. 14 in assist-to-turnover ratio (2.86:1), No. 43 in assists (163) and free throw percentage, No. 48 in steals (56), No. 50 in assists per game, No. 76 in total points (564), No. 79 in steals per game, No. 93 in points per game and No. 95 in three-point field goals made (76) among others.
In the team's regular season finale, an 83-76 win at Nevada, Flynn poured in 36 points which are the most by an Aztec player since Brandon Heath tallied 37 against UNLV on Jan. 15, 2005. He was just the eighth player in college basketball this season to produce a stat line of 36 points, five rebounds and five assists and the only from a Mountain West Conference team. His 36 points are the second most by an Aztec player this century.
In addition to today's accolade, he earned first-team All-American honors from Sports Illustrated and STADIUM and second-team recognition from, the Associated Press, The Sporting News, CBS Sports and NBC Sports. The Athletic has also designated Flynn as a second-team All-American. He is a USBWA All-District IX performer and a Sporting News Midseason second-team All-American, as well as on the watch lists for the Bob Cousy Point Guard of the Year, Lute Olson National Player of the Year and John R. Wooden Award. He was named the tournament MVP of both the Continental Tires Las Vegas Invitational and the Basketball Hall of Fame Classic. In separate votes by the league's coaches and media members, Flynn was named the Mountain West Player of the Year. He was also named the conference Defensive Player of the Year (coaches), its Newcomer of the Year (media) and a first-team All-Mountain West performer by both bodies.
Wetzell, a grad transfer originally from Auckland, New Zealand, was a second-team (coaches) and third-team (media) All-Mountain West performer, a two-time Mountain West Player of the Week and a member of the Continental Tires Las Vegas Invitational All-Tournament Team. After averaging 5.9 points, 3.8 rebounds and 0.3 assists in 2018-19 at Vanderbilt, Wetzell blossomed at San Diego State. He averaged 11.6 points, 6.5 rebounds and 1.3 assists. His 59.2 percent field goal percentage is the ninth best in Aztec single-season history. He reached double-digit scoring in 20-of-32 games this year compared to 9-of-32 last season. He led the team in rebounds 14 times, scoring three times and assists twice. At San Diego he established career-highs in points (20) and at that time rebounds (12). In the game he was 9-of-11 from the field and hit the first three pointer of the season. He has shot 50 percent or better in 24-of-32 games this year. At Wyoming he was a perfect 7-of-7 from the floor, including 3-of-3 from long range, and became the fourth player in the Brian Dutcher/Steve Fisher era to make at least seven field goals without a miss in a game.
Mitchell earned first-team (coaches) and second-team (media) All-Mountain West honors after averaging 13.8 points on 50.3 percent shooting, 41.2 percent from three-point range and 89.4 percent from the line in league play. He grabbed 5.6 rebounds and dished out 1.6 assists. For the season his numbers were equally impressive. He scored 12.4 points, pulled down 4.8 rebounds and assisted on 1.7 buckets per contest. Coming off the bench in the first 13 games he averaged 10.8 points, 4.3 rebounds and 1.5 assists. After being inserted in the starting line-up he averaged 13.1 points, grabbed 5.2 rebounds and dished out 1.8 assists. His field goal shooting increased to 48.8 percent from 43.8 percent; three-point shooting went up to 40.3 percent compared to 37.5 percent in the first 13 games and his free throw shooting went up 10 points (from 81.0-to-91.2 percent). With 22 points against New Mexico, he became the 34th player in SDSU history to reach 1,000-career points.
The Riverside, Calif., native reached double-digit point totals in 20-of-32 regular season games, including in 13-of-18 conference tilts. He recorded a season-high 28 points, 24 of which came in the second half, against Utah State where he went 9-of-14 from the floor including 4-of-6 from beyond the arc.
Dutcher led the 2019-20 Aztecs to the best regular-season record in program history (28-1) and guided the only program in America to complete the regular season with a single loss. San Diego State won the Mountain West regular-season championship and earned the No. 1 seed in the Mountain West Tournament. With 17 league victories, San Diego State set a school and Mountain West Conference record for most conference wins in a campaign. San Diego State's 94.4 percent winning percentage (17-1) in league games is the highest ever for a Mountain West Conference team, eclipsing Utah's 13-1 mark (92.8 percent) in 2004-05.
Under Dutcher's guidance, SDSU was the last unbeaten team in the nation for more than a month, from Jan. 15 to Feb. 22, and finished the year as one of three teams in men's Division I hoops with just two losses. In addition, San Diego State was the first program to reach 30 victories this season.
The Aztecs clinched its conference's regular-season title before any other program in the nation and was the first, since the 2007-08 Davidson team of Steph Curry, to do so with four games remaining on its schedule. In addition, the squad was 16-1 in road/neutral games this year, was the only team with just one loss in a road/neutral game and was 11-1 in NET Quadrant 1 and Quadrant 2 games. Remarkably, 11 of those 12 games came either on the road or on a neutral court.
Dutcher has already been named the Mountain West Coach of the Year by the league's media members and its coaches, in separate votes, USA Today Sports' Coach of the Year and is the United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) District IX Coach of the Year. He is one of four Division I basketball coaches who has been named a finalist for the 2020 Werner Ladder Naismith Men's College Coach of the Year Award.
2020 National Association of Basketball Coaches
District 17 – Division I All-District Teams
First Team
Jalen Harris, Nevada
Malachi Flynn, San Diego State
Sam Merrill, Utah State
Yanni Wetzel, San Diego State
Nico Carvacho, Colorado State
Second Team
Justinian Jessup, Boise State
Bryce Hamilton, UNLV
Derrick Alston Jr., Boise State
Matt Mitchell, San Diego State
Neemias Queta, Utah State
Coach of the Year: Brian Dutcher, San Diego State
-SDSU-