SAN DIEGO - San Diego State and Whittier College meet Monday afternoon at Steve Fisher Court at Viejas Arena in San Diego, in the Aztecs 2025-26 non-conference finale.
OFF THE BOUNCE
The Aztecs and Poets are meeting for the 81st time, with SDSU holding a 50-30 advantage in the series, but this will be the first meeting since January 31, 1969.
This will be the first meeting with San Diego State as a Division I institution.
In the Aztecs’ Division II era, from the 1956-57-to-1969-70 seasons, SDSU was 11-2 versus the Poets in San Diego and 9-3 at Whittier. Prior to that SDSU was 15-10 at home and 15-15 at Whittier.
The series started on December 21, 2023 and Whittier took the first eight match-ups. The Aztecs did not earn a win until February 22, 1930, ending an eight-game slide to open the series.
SDSU is playing its third of three games in just over five days: vs. Air Force (12/17), vs. Arizona (12/20) & vs. Whittier (12/22) at 1 p.m. PT.
Against Air Force, the Aztecs had a season-high 27 assists on 31 field goals (87.1 percent). It’s 27 dimes are the most for an Aztecs team since it recorded 30 against New Mexico on January 15, 2019.
Since the start of the 1999-00 season, SDSU has recorded 69 games with at least 20 assists (SDSU is 64-5 in those contests). The only other time San Diego State has assisted on more than 80.0 percent of its made buckets in that time frame was on November 22, 2019 vs. LIU when it had 26 assists on 32 baskets (81.3 percent).
For a program known for its defense, the 2025-26 Aztecs are filling it up on the offensive end of the floor. The team is averaging 81.8 points per game through nine contests. SDSU’s best scoring team as a Division I program was its 1970-71 team, its first at the Division I level, which averaged 86.9 points per game. San Diego State, in its Division I history, has had five seasons where it’s scored at an 80-plus point per game clip. The program’s best scoring year in the Mountain West era was the 2017-18 squad which averaged 77.1 points per game.
SDSU ranks No. 7 in the nation with 40.4 bench points per game and has totaled at least 40 bench points in five of the last six games and in 6-of-10 games this season.
San Diego State ranks No. 2 in percentage of bench points vs. total points among the top 10 bench scoring teams in the nation.
In the last four games, the Aztec bench has scored 57.2 percent of its total points (167-of-292) and BJ Davis is responsible for 34.1percent of those points (57-of-167).
San Diego State is 1-of-2 programs in the nation with at least six games in which its bench has scored at least 40 points and in which none of those games were against non-Division I opponents. (also: Texas A&M)
The Aztecs bench totaled 59 points in its 77-66 win over Utah Valley. The 59 bench points are its highest against a Division I opponent since totaling 57 at Air Force (1-22-20) & the most for a Mountain West team, against a Division I opponent, since December 16, 2018.
San Diego State’s 76.6 percent of bench points-to-total points against Utah Valley is the ninth highest in a Division I game since at least the start of the 1996-97 season.
BJ Davis leads the Aztecs in scoring (12.4 ppg) without the benefit of a start. Among those who have played no more than 212 minutes without a start, Davis ranks No. 1 in the nation in points per game off the bench).
Its game against Oregon at the Players Era Festival marked the second time since the start of the 1999-200 season, that the SDSU was successful on at least 65.0 percent of its field goal attempts against a Division I opponent, bettered only by a 69.6 percent (48-of-69) effort against Campbell on December 12, 2006, in a 119-82 victory. The Aztecs shot over 65.0 percent in each half; 69.0 percent (20-of-29) in the first half and 65.5 percent (19-of-29) in the second half.
Against Oregon, BJ Davis finished with a career-high 21 points and in five of the team’s six games played in last and this year’s Players Era Festival. In the event, Davis is averaging a team leading 14.3 points per game.
Reese Dixon Waters led the team in scoring (22 points) vs. Oregon at the Players Era Festival, and his nine field goals are a career high and the most since Magoon Gwath had nine vs. San Jose State (1/28/25). His 69.2 percent shooting (9-of-13) is the best an Aztec has shot on a minimum of 13 attempts since Nick Boyd went 10-of-14 (.714) vs. Boise State (2/15/25).
Freshman Elzie Harrington earned his first start in his sixth game as an Aztec, which is the fewest games for a freshman to crack the starting line up since Jeremy Hemsley started each of the first 25 games of the 2015-16 season.
Under Brian Dutcher, the Aztecs have held opponents to 60 points or less 120 times and have won 113 of those games (113-7, 94.2 percent). Overall, Dutcher’s Aztecs have held their opponent to 60 or fewer points in 43.6 percent (120-of-275) of the games he has coached. Nationally, only Houston (168), Virginia (151) & Liberty (134) have held opponents to 60 points or less more times than SDSU since the start of 2017-18.
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.
Brian Dutcher reached the 200-win plateau with a 73-57 victory against Idaho State (11-9-25), becoming the third Aztec head coach with at least 200 wins. The other two are Aztec Hall of Fame inductees George Ziegenfuss (1949-69) with 316 wins and Steve Fisher (2000-17) with a program record 386.
San Diego State owns a 161-48 record (77.0 percent) since the start of the 2019-20 campaign, which is the FOURTH BEST record in the nation. SDSU trails Gonzaga at 185-31 (85.6 percent), Houston at 194-33 (85.5 percent) and Duke at 170-47 (78.3 percent) and is ahead of the likes of Kansas 164-53 (75.6 percent) and Connecticut 160-53 (75.1 percent).
San Diego State owns the SIXTH BEST record in the nation since the start of the 2005-06 campaign, 509-184 (.734), and is 283-39 (.879) in home games in that time frame which is also the SIXTH BEST in the nation.
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).