SAN DIEGO – After escaping the Air Force Academy with a 77-76 overtime win on Wednesday night, the San Diego State men’s basketball program plays its second of four games in an 11 day stretch on Saturday against the Nevada Wolf Pack at Lawlor Events Center in Reno, Nev.
OFF THE BOUNCE
Meeting for the 35th time in the series, and 15th time in Reno, the San Diego State men’s basketball program play the Nevada Wolf Pack at Lawlor Events Center in Reno, Nev., on Saturday evening.
The Aztecs and Wolf Pack are meeting for the 35th time, with SDSU holding a 26-8 advantage in the all-time series. In the Mountain West era, SDSU has a 21-5 lead in the series, but is just 5-6 at Lawlor Events Center, which opened on November 4, 1983. (complete series results between San Diego State and Nevada are listed in the column on page 4)
San Diego State is 5-5 in Lawlor Events Center since Nevada joined the Mountain West in 2012-13. Only one of SDSU’s five wins has been by at least 10 points while the other four by no more than seven points, and its five losses are by an average of 13.8 points.
With television not making things easy on the Aztecs, Saturday’s game will be the second of four games over an 11-day stretch, which began on Wednesday night at Air Force (Jan. 22), continues at Nevada (Jan. 28), then home for San Jose State (Jan. 28) and concludes with Wyoming (Feb. 1).
With San Diego State’s 77-76 overtime win at Air Force (Jan. 22), the Aztecs are 36-4 in their last 40 games immediately following a loss. In situations where a loss is followed immediately by a home game, San Diego State is 37-1 in its last 38 games.
For just the 24th time in its last 500 games (since the start of the 2010-11 campaign), the Aztecs wore their red uniforms. The team is 2-0 this season in Scarlet, having worn them in a 74-57 victory at Steve Fisher Court on December 7, 2024 and Wednesday’s 77-76 overtime win at Air Force. Since Coach Dutcher took the reins of the program, SDSU is 4-0 in the kit and since the start of the 2010-11 season it is 19-5 in the color.
How rare was San Diego State’s 68-76 loss on January 18 to UNLV, a Quad 3 defeat? Until that night, it had been 65 games or 1,792 days since the Aztecs had lost to either a Quad 3 or Quad 4 opponent. The last Quad 3 or Quad 4 team to defeat SDSU was Quad 3 UNLV on February 22, 2020, which halted that year’s longest win-streak to open the year, 26 games, and was the only loss the Aztecs suffered in the regular season.
Halfway through the season, San Diego State is once again trending as one of the nation’s best in defense. After the games of January 22, according to KenPom, the Aztecs are 3rd in block percentage, No. 9 effective field goal percentage defense, No. 12 in adjusted defensive efficiency, No. 14 in 2-point percentage defense, and No. 15 3-point percentage defense.
Since the start of the 2017-18 season, when Brian Dutcher took the helm of the San Diego State program, he has the No. 5 best win percentage in the nation (189-63, 75.0 percent) and since the start of the 2019-20 campaign his Aztecs are 146-39 (78.9 percent), the third best record in the country.
In the Aztecs win over Colorado State (Jan. 14) sophomore Miles Byrd scored a career-high 25 points, including five 3-pointers, grabbed six rebounds and had seven steals. He is the first player in Mountain West history to have a game with those numbers and just the third in the nation in the last 16 years.
In its 17 Division I games, San Diego State has held eight opponents to their worst shooting game of the season and three had their 2nd worst field goal percentage games.
San Diego State is No. 1 in the Mountain West and No. 4 in the nation in field goal percentage defense at 36.7 percent, and is one of two programs in the nation, also Tennessee, that is limiting opponents to a combined maximum of 36.7 percent from the floor and 28.7 percent from beyond the arc. In field goal percentage defense, San Diego State is No. 4 and Tennessee is No. 2 and in three-point field goal percentage defense Tennessee is No. 1and the Aztecs are No. 15.
With the Aztecs 67-38 win over Air Force (Jan. 8), San Diego State is 97-7 in the Brian Dutcher era, when it limits its opponent to 60 or fewer points. Overall, the Aztecs have won 31 straight when holding the opposition to 60 points or less and are 104-8 in its last 112.
In San Diego State’s last nine wins it shot .432 from the field, including .330 from the bonus distance, and averaged 75.3 points per game, with an average margin of victory of 13.6 points. Defensively, in those games, the team limited its opponents to a .355 shooting percentage, including .287 from beyond the arc and for the season has limited the opposition to 36.7 percent shooting overall, which ranks No. 4 nationally.
The Aztecs have held 10 of their 17 Division I opponents to less than 40 percent shooting, seven games of less than 35.0 percent, three under 30.0 percent. SDSU limited California to just 25.5 percent shooting on Dec. 21, the third lowest opponent field goal percentage shooting night in the Brian Dutcher era.
In the team’s 73-70 overtime win against No. 6 Houston, the Aztecs overcame both a 5-point halftime deficit and trailed by 11-point with 14:58 to play to send the game to overtime and ultimately its 3-point win. The victory was Brian Dutcher’s 15th win in 26 games against top 25 opponents. Dutcher is the only head coach in program history with a winning record against ranked teams and it was the program’s first win against a top-10 team since a 71-64 victory over No. 1 Alabama in the Sweet 16 of the 2023 NCAA Tournament.
San Diego State, which in 2023-24 reached the Mountain West Tournament championship game for the seventh time in head coach Brian Dutcher’s seven seasons, looks for its unprecedented 17th Mountain West men’s basketball title. Entering the 2024-25 season, San Diego State has won nine regular season and seven Mountain West tournament titles, the most of any program that has ever been a member of the league.
Brian Dutcher is in his eighth season as San Diego State’s head coach and his 26th season on the Aztec sidelines. In his seven-plus seasons as head coach, he has led the Aztecs to five conference titles, seven Mountain West championship game appearances, a 189-63 overall record and 97-35 mark in league games, both league leading in that time frame, has been named the national coach of the year, twice the Mountain West Conference Coach of the Year and led this team to back-to-back Sweet 16s including a run to the 2023 NCAA national championship game.