SAN DIEGO - Returning to Steve Fisher Court at Viejas Arena for the first time in nearly two weeks, San Diego State hosts Point Loma Nazarene on Monday evening.
OFF THE BOUNCE
The Aztecs and Sea Lions are meeting for the 15th time, with San Diego State owning a 9-5 advantage in the all-time series. SDSU is 8-1 on its home floor. When PLNU was located in Pasadena, Calif., and known as Pasadena Nazarene it defeated the Aztecs in four of five meetings on its home court, but all those games occurred prior to the 1964-65 season. Since San Diego State went to Division I, the teams have met twice in Viejas resulting in a pair of SDSU victories.
San Diego State was led by Reese Waters and his career-high 24 points and 7 rebounds in outlasting California, 76-67 in overtime, at the inaugural SoCal Showcase at The Pavilion in San Juan Capistrano, Calif. Waters was named the game's Most Valuable Player.
Since the start of the 2009-10 season, the Aztecs are among the elite at winning on neutral floors. In a minimum of 95 neutral site games since the beginning of the 2009-10 campaign, SDSU has more than doubled its win total compared to its losses (67-32; 67.7 percent). Gonzaga is the only other team in the top-10 who is not a member of a Power 6 basketball conference.
San Diego State has played three neutral site games in its last three outings, all victories. It is the fifth time in the Dutcher/Fisher era that the program has gone undefeated in regular-season neutral site games (min. 3 neutral site games played). SDSU was 5-0 in 2010-11, and 3-0 in 2011-12, 2016-17, 2019-20 and this year.
San Diego State, which won both the 2022-23 Mountain West regular season and tournament titles and reached the league tournament championship game for the sixth time in head coach Brian Dutcher's six seasons, looks for its unprecedented 17th Mountain West men's basketball title. Entering the 2023-24 season, San Diego State has won nine regular season and seven Mountain West tournament titles.
For the fifth time since the start of the 2010-11 season, San Diego State opened the season ranked in the preseason AP Top 25 Poll. The Aztecs No. 17 ranking in the initial poll is the second highest in program history, trailing only the 2014-15 preseason poll in which it was No. 16. Since the start of the 2010-11 campaign, SDSU has appeared in the AP poll for 102 weeks, more than any program in the state of California, ahead of UCLA (86 weeks), Saint Mary's (53 weeks), Southern California (37 weeks) and California (11 weeks).
San Diego State owns a 113-24 record (82.5 percent) since the start of the 2019-20 campaign. That is the third best record in the nation, trailing only Gonzaga (125-14, 88.9 percent) and Houston (123-22, 84.8 percent). The 10 winningest programs since 2019-20 are listed in the box below.
In its 76-67 overtime win against California at the SoCal Showcase in San Juan Capistrano, San Diego State attempted 37 free throws and combined with its a season-high 41 free throws against Washington in the final at the Continental Tire Main Event in Las Vegas, the Aztecs two game total of 78 free throw attempts are the most in a two-game stretch since at least the start of the 1999-00 season. In its last two games, no team in the nation has attempted at least 78 free throws and knocked them down at a minimum of a 79.5 percent clip...other than San Diego State.
Junior guard Reese Waters led the Aztecs' attack against California with his six 10-plus point effort (a career-high 24 points) in as many games this season. He was 10-of-10 from the free throw line and is the eighth Aztec to score at least 20 points in a game and be perfect from the line with a minimum of 10 free throw attempts in the Dutcher/Fisher era. In addition, the Long Beach, Calif., native led the Scarlet and Black with a career-best seven rebounds.
Senior forward Jaedon LeDee reached double figure scoring, 19 points against California, for the sixth game in a row. In a career high 42:22 of action he drew nine fouls which he used to get to the free throw line 10 times. In six games he has drawn 56 fouls, an average of 9.3 per game.
Darrion Trammell, a senior guard, scored a season-best nine points and matched a season-high with four free throw attempts, three rebounds and two steals. His four free throws and 30:42 of game action are season-bests.
Brian Dutcher is in his seventh season as San Diego State's head coach and his 25th season on the Aztec sidelines. In his six-plus seasons as head coach, he has led the Aztecs to five conference titles, six Mountain West championship game appearances, a 156-48 overall record, the 2023 NCAA national championship game, has been named the national coach of the year, and twice the Mountain West Conference Coach of the Year.