SAN DIEGO – The San Diego State men’s basketball program, coming off a sweep of a two-game road trip, opens a two-game homestand on Tuesday night against San Jose State at Steve Fisher Court at Viejas Arena, a facility at which the Aztecs have never lost to the Spartans.
OFF THE BOUNCE
The San Diego State men’s basketball team returns to Steve Fisher Court at Viejas Arena for the first of two home games facing San Jose State on Tuesday at 7:40 p.m. PT. The game will be broadcast on FS1.
The Aztecs and Spartans are meeting for the 85th time, with SDSU holding a 49-35 advantage in the all-time series. In the Mountain West era, SDSU has a 19-1 lead in the series, is 33-8 in San Diego overall, and a robust 13-0 at Steve Fisher Court.
With television not making things easy on the Aztecs, Tuesday’s game will be the third of four games over an 11-day stretch, which began last Wednesday night at Air Force (Jan. 22), continued at Nevada on Saturday (Jan. 22), and now home tonight for San Jose State and concluding on Saturday with Wyoming at Viejas Arena. So far SDSU is 2-0 in this four game stretch.
For just the 25th time in their last 502 games (since the start of the 2010-11 campaign), the Aztecs will don 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 last 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 25, according to KenPom, the Aztecs are No. 2 in block percentage, No. 5 in 3-point percentage defense, No. 6 in effective field goal percentage defense, No. 8 in adjusted defensive efficiency and No. 11 2-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 (190-63, 75.1 percent) and since the start of the 2019-20 campaign his Aztecs are 147-39 (79.0 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 18 Division I games, San Diego State has held nine 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. 3 in the nation in field goal percentage defense at 36.3 percent, and is one of two programs in the nation, also Tennessee, that is limiting opponents to a combined maximum of 36.3 percent from the floor and 28.1 percent from beyond the arc. In field goal percentage defense, San Diego State is No. 3 and Tennessee is No. 2 and in three-point field goal percentage defense Tennessee is No. 1and the Aztecs are No. 7.
With the Aztecs 69-50 win over Nevada (Jan. 25), San Diego State is 98-7 in the Brian Dutcher era, when it limits its opponent to 60 or fewer points. Overall, the Aztecs have won 32 straight when holding the opposition to 60 points or less and are 105-8 in its last 113 in the category.
In San Diego State’s last 10 wins it shot .440 from the field, including .330 from the bonus distance, and averaged 74.9 points per game, with an average margin of victory of 15.3 points. Defensively, in those games, the team limited its opponents to a .346 shooting percentage, including .259 from beyond the arc and for the season has limited the opposition to 36.3 percent shooting overall, which ranks No. 3 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 and 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 190-63 overall record and 98-35 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.