SAN DIEGO - Winners of seven of its last nine games, and having won seven of its last eight games, the San Diego State Aztecs continue Mountain West play on Tuesday evening at Steve Fisher Court at Viejas Arena against the team at the top of the league standings; New Mexico. The game will be broadcast on FS1 and is scheduled to tip at 8 p.m. PT.
OFF THE BOUNCE
The Aztecs and Lobos are meeting for the 98th time with San Diego State on the wrong site of a 52-45 record in the all-time series. SDSU is 29-14 overall in San Diego, including 16-8 at Steve Fisher Court, 4-1 at home against UNM under Brian Dutcher
The Aztecs are 37-4 in their last 41 games immediately following a loss. In situations where a loss is followed immediately by a home game, San Diego State is 36-1 in its last 37 games.
San Diego State, which reached the Sweet 16 in last year’s NCAA Tournament, has lost the point production of its top seven scorers from a year ago. Six are no longer with the organization and one, Reese Waters, has not played this season due to injury. In total, San Diego State scored 2,742 points a year ago, but just 232 of those points (8.5 percent) are suited up for the Aztecs this year. SDSU is 18-7 overall, 11-5 in the Mountain West and in fourth place in the league standings and has multiple wins over top 25 teams, including No. 5 Houston.
The Aztecs had two players in the last three games to pass the 1,000-career point plateau; Wayne McKinney III and Nick Boyd. McKinney III topped 1,000 points vs. Boise State and comes into the New Mexico game with 1,021 points. He is one of two active players 6-0 or shorter that have scored at least 1,000 career points, shot at least .420 from the field and blocked at least 27 shots. Boyd accomplished it the next game, vs. Fresno State, and comes into the game against the Lobos with 1,029.
San Diego State is 9-0 this season when it holds its opponent to 60 or fewer points, including its 64-47 win over Boise State last Saturday. In the Brian Dutcher era, his Aztecs have held their opponent to 60 points or less 116 times and have won 109 of those games (109-7, 94.0 percent). Overall, Dutcher’s Aztecs have held their opponent to 60 or fewer points in 44.6 percent (116-of-260) of the games he has coached.
With six blocked shots against Boise State (Feb. 15), Magoon Gwath set a San Diego State freshman single-game record for rejections. His six blocks matched Nathan Mensah for the most by a player under Brian Dutcher. Mensah blocked six shots against Saint Mary’s on December 22, 2020 in San Luis Obispo, Calif.
This year San Diego State has had second half scoring runs of 20-0, 18-0 & 17-0 all which contributed to comeback wins. Overall SDSU has had 18 scoring runs of at least 10-0 this season and is 12-1 in contests in which it strung together at least a run of 10-0. Since the start of the 2020-21 season, the Aztecs are 75-9 in games in which they put together a scoring run of at least 10-0.
San Diego State, one of the most dominant defensive teams in the nation, ranked in the top 20 in Kenpom’s Adjusted Defensive Efficiency in nine of the last 14 years, in the top 10 in seven of the last 14 campaigns, and is currently No. 10 in that ranking. Additionally, the Aztecs are No. 1 in block percentage, No. 5 in effective field goal percentage defense, No. 8 in 2-point percentage defense, and No. 17 3-point percentage defense according to Kenpom.
Head men’s basketball coach Brian Dutcher reached a Mountain West coaching milestone with the team’s 63-61 win over Wyoming on February 1. Dutcher became just the fourth coach in league history to record 100 conference wins (currently 103 victories). He joined Aztecs Hall of Famer Steve Fisher (No. 1 with 168 wins), Leon Rice (No. 2 with 155 wins), and Steve Alford (No. 3 with 128 wins) as the only coaches in Mountain West history to record triple digit league victories. Dutcher reached the milestone in 135 games, faster than any of the previous three. Alford did it in 151 games, Rice in 173 and Fisher in 190.
Sophomore Miles Byrd was named one of the final 10 players in the nation vying for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame’s Julius Erving Award for the top small forward in college basketball. An all around talent, he is the only player in the nation who is shooting a minimum of .383 from the field, .317 from distance, .831 from the line with at least 61 assists, 48 steals and 24 blocks.
Since the start of the 2013-14 season, when the current slate of teams in the Mountain West came together, San Diego State’s 158-54 (.745) record is the best in the Mountain West in conference games. Boise State ranks second with a 143-73 (.662) mark.
San Diego State is the No. 2 ranked team in the nation in field goal percentage defense (.372) and one of two teams in the nation which is limiting opponents to no more than a combined 37.0 percent overall from the floor and 29.9 percent from long distance. (also: Tennessee)
The Aztecs have held 12 of their 24 Division I opponents to less than 40 percent shooting, eight games of less than 35.0 percent and three under 30.0 percent. SDSU limited the California Bears to just 25.5 percent shooting on Dec. 21, the third lowest opponent field goal percentage shooting night in the Brian Dutcher era.
Since the start of the 2017-18 season, when Brian Dutcher took the helm of the San Diego State program, he has the No. 6 win percentage in the nation (195-65, 75.0 percent) and since the start of the 2019-20 campaign his Aztecs are 152-41 (78.8 percent), the third best record in the country behind only Gonzaga (169-29, 85.4 percent) and Houston (171-31, 84.7 percent).
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 suffered in the regular season.
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.
San Diego State, which in 2024 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 195-65 overall record and 103-37 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.