SAN DIEGO – San Diego State men's basketball head coach Brian Dutcher announced Wednesday the hiring of Ryan Badrtalei to be an assistant coach on the Aztec coaching staff. Badrtalei (BAD-ruh-tell-ee) joins the staff for the 2024-25 season after 19 successful years in the UC Irvine basketball program.
"Ryan brings a wealth of coaching and recruiting experience to our program and immediately stood out when this process began," Dutcher said. "I have known Ryan for 19 years and have high expectations for him and our program heading into the upcoming season and beyond."
Badrtalei has been the associate head coach for the last four seasons at UC Irvine (UCI) after a 10-year stint as an assistant with the Anteater's program. Within the program, he has been involved in recruiting, player development, scheduling, scouting and academic coordination. During his time in Irvine the team has produced 12 straight winning seasons and competed in the postseason in eight of those campaigns.
"I am absolutely thrilled and deeply honored to join the men's basketball staff at San Diego State," Badrtalei said. "The opportunity to work alongside Coach Dutcher and his incredibly talented staff is a dream come true. The program's commitment to the student athlete's experience and pursuit of excellence are values that align with my own. I look forward to contributing to the rich legacy and am excited for the journey ahead."
Since the start of the 2013-14 season, Badrtalei has helped lead an Anteaters program that has won the Big West regular season title and taken the No. 1 seed into the conference tournament five times. UC Irvine has finished in the top three of the standings in nine of the last 10 years the league held a tournament (the event was canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic).
In his time on the bench, his charges have earned one Big West Player of the Year and three Freshman of the Year honors. He has tutored 44 All-Big West honorees, including 14 first-team performers, two Sixth Man of the Year and an equal number of Big West Tournament MVPs. The league's "Best Defensive" and "Hustle" awards have been bestowed to an Anteater eight and three times, respectively, since Badrtalei joined the Anteaters staff. In his time, the program's players have been awarded 20 Player of the Week and 17 Big West All-Tournament team honors.
In his 14 years on the UC Irvine bench, the Anteaters have won 289 games, an average of nearly 21 wins per season. The team's 289 victories are the most among any member of the Big West in that time frame, as are the program's 162 Big West Conference wins. He has assisted in guiding the Anteaters to the postseason eight times, including the program's first ever NCAA Tournament appearances in 2015 and in 2019 which was marked by a win over 4-seed Kansas State, the program's first victory in the event since going to the Division I level at the start of the 1977-78 season.
Most recently, the Anteaters won the 2023-24 Big West regular-season championship with a 17-3 league mark and an unbeaten record on its home floor (13-0). Those 17 conference victories, the most in the UC Irvine program's history, combined with its 15 Big West victories in earning the 2022-23 league title, produced an Anteater-record 32 conference triumphs in the last two seasons.
In 2019-20, Badrtalei saw his Anteaters win their second-straight outright Big West regular season title. He was named one of the 50 Impactful Assistant Coaches in Division 1 in 2020 by Silver Waves Media as well as the top assistant coach in the Big West by Stadium Sports. This past year, Silver Waves Media named him as a "Top 100 Rising Stars" in NCAA Basketball.
The season prior, in 2018-19, UC Irvine won a program record 31 games (31-6), produced its longest win streak (17 games) and equaled its program-best with a 15-1 mark in Big West games.
Prior to being named an assistant in 2009 at UCI, Badrtalei spent five years as its Video Coordinator and the Director of Basketball Operations.
He has helped develop NBA and international players. Namely, from 2007 until the end of his career in 2016, Badrtalei worked with Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers both on court and in strength and conditioning. Bryant won two NBA championships, an NBA Most Valuable Player Award and two Olympic gold medals.
Prior to joining the Anteaters' staff Badrtalei spent two seasons as a varsity assistant and junior varsity coach at Capistrano Valley High School, in Mission Viejo, Calif.
A 2003 graduate of UCLA, he has a bachelor's degree in psychobiology, a minor in education, and earned a master's degree in coaching and athletic administration from Concordia University (Irvine) in 2017. Badrtalei, while at UCLA, worked with the men's and women's basketball programs, and in addition, worked as an orientation counselor, an academic counselor and peer mentor, as well as serving on the Executive Board of the UCLA Student Alumni Association.
Badrtalei and his wife, Drue, a former Long Beach State and Team USA water polo athlete, have three boys, Drayke (12), Drayden (9) and Dayne (5).