SAN DIEGO - On Sunday afternoon at Steve Fisher Court, in the renewal of a series that hasn’t seen a meeting in slightly less than 45 years, San Diego State hosts Idaho State following the Bengals game at San Diego on Friday evening.
OFF THE BOUNCE
The Aztecs and Idaho State are meeting for the sixth time in each program’s history with the home team having held serve on its home floor (SDSU is 3-0 in San Diego & ISU is 2-0 in Pocatello). The last meeting was on December 4, 1980, at Peterson Gym in a 96-80 win for San Diego State.
The Aztecs are looking to move to 2-0 for the sixth time in the nine seasons head coach Brian Dutcher has led the program. In the previous five occasions, San Diego State has gone on to have a winning record and appeared in the NCAA Tournament in three of those seasons.
San Diego State is looking for its seventh consecutive win against the current lineup of Big Sky Conference programs. The last time a Big Sky Conference program got the better of an Aztec squad was a 56-662 defeat on January 9, 2008, against Northern Colorado at Viejas Arena.
Brian Dutcher is one win from reaching the 200-win plateau, becoming just the third Aztec head coach with at least 200 wins. The other two are George Ziegenfuss (1949-69) with 316 wins and Steve Fisher (2000-17) with a program record 386. Both men have been honored with induction into the Aztec Hall of Fame.
San Diego State is 11-0 from the start of last season when it has held its opponent to 60 or fewer points. In the Brian Dutcher era, his Aztecs have held their opponent to 60 points or less 118 times and have won 111 of those games (111-7, 94.1 percent). Overall, Dutcher’s Aztecs have held their opponent to 60 or fewer points in 44.2 percent (118-of-267) of the games he has coached.
San Diego State, which has reached the Mountain West Tournament championship game in seven of the first eight seasons in head coach Brian Dutcher’s tenure, looks to finish its time in the league building on its dominance with an unprecedented 17th Mountain West men’s basketball title. Entering the 2025-26 season, its last as a member of the conference, San Diego State has won nine regular season and seven Mountain West tournament titles, the most of any program that has been a member of the league.
Brian Dutcher is the only San Diego State head men’s basketball coach to accumulate at least 21 wins in each of his first eight seasons and is averaging 24.8 wins per season coming into the 2025-26 campaign.
Junior guard Miles Byrd is one of two players nationally who have scored at least 13 points on 50.0 percent shooting with at least three 3-pointers, eight rebounds, 3 assists, an assist and a block in a game this year. Byrd compiled those stats in the Aztecs season opener against Long Beach State.
With seven boards vs. Long Beach State, Tae Simmons is one of four, 6-6 or shorter, true freshmen who has come off the bench against a Division I opponent this year and grabbed at least seven rebounds.
With the team’s win over Long Beach State in the season opener, San Diego State has won 19 straight season openers against unranked teams, a streak dating back to the 2005-06 season. SDSU’s last loss to an unranked opponent on opening night came on November 19, 2004, in an 80-72 overtime defeat at the hands of UC Santa Barbara.
Overall, San Diego State has won 13 straight season openers and 20 of its last 21 to begin a campaign. The lone blemish during the stretch came at the start of the 2012-13 season when SDSU fell to No. 9/9 Syracuse on the USS Midway. Taking into account that the Syracuse game was played outdoors on the flight deck of the USS Midway, the Aztecs have come out victorious in its last 20 season openers played indoors.
San Diego State is riding a 16-game win streak in regular season home openers, against any opponent, ranked or not.
San Diego State returns 61.9 percent of its minutes from a year ago, according to T-Rank, and those are the second most returning minutes in the nation among teams Torvik ranks in his top 50, behind Purdue (69.7 percent).
With the return of Reese Dixon-Waters in 2025-26, after missing the 2024-25 season, San Diego State returns 76.2 percent of its offensive output compared to 2024-25 (1,671-of-2,194 points).
At the Mountain West Media Day in Las Vegas, by a vote of media members who regularly cover the league, junior guard Miles Byrd and freshman guard Elzie Harrington were named Preseason Mountain West Player of the Year and Preseason Freshman of the Year, respectively. In addition, Reese Dixon-Waters, Magoon Gwath, and Byrd earned inclusion on the Preseason All-Mountain West Team. Byrd was a second-team NABC All-Pacific Division and second team All-Mountain West performer last season and returns as the team’s leading scorer. Dixon-Waters was the team’s second leading scorer in 2023-24 and a 2024 Preseason All-Mountain West selection who missed the entire 2024-25 season. Gwath was last year’s Mountain West Freshman and Defensive Player of the Year, was ranked No. 6 nationally in blocked shots per game (2.62). Harrington was the No. 80 rated player in the nation and is the second straight top-100 signee in as many years.
The Aztecs return three of their four leading scorers from last season: Miles Byrd (12.3 ppg), BJ Davis (9.0 ppg) and Magoon Gwath (8.5 ppg) and additionally will see the return of Reese Dixon-Waters (9.6 ppg in 2023-24) who missed the entire 2024-25 campaign with a foot injury.
San Diego State owns a 156-44 record (78.0 percent) since the start of the 2019-20 campaign. That’s the THIRD BEST record in the nation, trailing Gonzaga’s 175-30 (85.4 percent), and Houston’s 184-32 (85.2 percent), and ahead of the likes of Duke’s 160-46 (77.7 percent) and Kansas’ 156-50 (75.7 percent) records.
San Diego State owns the SIXTH BEST record in the nation since the start of the 2009-10 campaign, 412-137 (.750), and is 226-29 (.886) in home contests in that time frame which is the SEVENTH BEST in the nation.