ORLANDO, Fla. – San Diego State, the No. 5 seed in the South Region, opens play in the 2023 NCAA Men's Basketball Championship with a first-round matchup against 12th-seeded College of Charleston Thursday at Amway Center in Orlando, Fla. The game will be telecast on truTV and is scheduled to tip at 3:10 p.m. ET (12:10 p.m. PT).
OFF THE BOUNCE
San Diego State received the automatic qualifying bid into the tournament and enters Thursday's game with a 27-6 record.
The Aztecs are making their 15th appearance in the Division I event, owning a 6-14 all-time record. Head coach Brian Dutcher has been on the Aztec sidelines for 17 of the program's 20 all-time tournament games and all six of the program's victories.
This is Dutcher's fourth NCAA appearance for the two-time Mountain West Conference Coach of the Year in his six seasons as head coach with a likely appearance in the 2019-20 canceled because of the COVID pandemic.
This is the program's 10th tournament appearance in the last 13 seasons that a champion was crowned. That total does not include the 2019-20 season when SDSU was 30-2 and ranked sixth in the AP poll when the season ended prior to the tournament.
San Diego State owns a 103-22 record (82.4 percent) since the start of the 2019-20 campaign. That's the third-best record in the nation, trailing Gonzaga's 118-12 (90.7 percent), and Houston's 114-21 (84.4 percent), and ahead of Baylor's 103-23 (81.7 percent) and Kansas' 110-25 (81.5 percent) records.
The Aztecs come into the NCAA Tournament having won 10 of its last 11 games (10-1) and 14 of its last 16 (14-2), with its two losses coming on the road to NCAA Tournament teams Nevada (14-2 at home) and at Boise State (14-1 at home).
San Diego State owns the sixth-best record in the nation since the start of the 2009-10 campaign, 359-115 (.757), and is 160-90 (.640) road and neutral site contests in that time frame which is the seventh best in the nation.
San Diego State played in its sixth consecutive Mountain West Tournament title game, defeating Utah State, 62-57. Matt Bradley, who averaged 12.3 points and 3.0 rebounds, was named the tournament MVP. Jaedon LeDee, who reached double figure-scoring in two of three games and averaged 6.0 rebounds earned inclusion on the all-tournament team. The Aztecs and Aggies have played each other in four of the last five championship games and have a 2-2 split in those contests. Boise State was the interloper in last year's title matchup against San Diego State. Amazingly, SDSU has made the tournament title game in nine of the last 10 years and in 13 of the last 15 seasons (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 & 2023).
San Diego State and College of Charleston are meeting for the second time with the Aztecs owning the lone victory in the series. The first meeting came on Nov. 28, 2013 in a quarterfinal game at the DirecTV Wooden Legacy at Cal State Fullerton's Titan Gym. SDSU cruised to a 72-52 victory. Winston Shepard led SDSU with 15 points and future Aztec Hall of Fame inductee Xavier Thames added 11.
San Diego State is 3-1 all-time against the current membership of the Colonial Athletic Association, and has won two straight against the conference by a combined score of 153-107 (76.5-53.5). Included in the two-game win streak against current members of the Colonial Athletic is the 72-52 win over Charleston.
San Diego State won its 21st game at Fresno State on February 15, marking the sixth straight season the Aztecs have reached that win total (every year under Brian Dutcher). The game was one of a league-best seven road wins in conference play for SDSU.
San Diego State continues to boast an impressive NCAA metric profile. The Aztecs are 14th in the NET, 14th in KenPom, 24th in BPI, 28th in Sagarin Rating, sixth in KPI and 11th in T-Rank: all tops in the Mountain West.
SDSU head coach Brian Dutcher is in his sixth season as San Diego State's head coach and his 24th season on the Aztec sidelines. In his five-plus seasons as head coach, he has led the Aztecs to five conference titles, a 145-46 (75.9 percent) overall record and has already been named the national coach of the year and twice named Mountain West Conference Coach of the Year. Among first time head coaches who started in the 2017-18 season, Dutcher's 145 wins are the most in the nation.