SAN DIEGO - The first place San Diego State Aztecs head to Dee Glen Smith Spectrum in Logan, Utah, on Saturday morning to take on the Utah State Aggies in a battle for first place in the Mountain West. The game is set to tip at 11 a.m. MT/10 a.m. PT and will be broadcast on CBS.
OFF THE BOUNCE
The Aztecs and Aggies are meeting for the 33rd time overall and 13th time on Utah State’s home floor. SDSU leads the series 20-12 but is just 5-7 in Logan.
SDSU, vs. Colorado State (1-28-26), shot 54.2 percent from the floor in the first half. It was the eighth time in the last 10 games that San Diego State shot at least 50 percent in the first half and the 11th time this season in 20 first halves. The Aztecs then shot 53.8 percent in the second half, making it 22 of 40 halves this season they have shot at least 50 percent.
Colorado State came into its Wednesday game ranked No. 19 in the country with a 50.2 field goal percentage. SDSU held the Rams to 33.3 percent shooting (16-for-48), their lowest mark of the season and lowest against a Mountain West opponent since shooting 27.9 percent at San Diego State on Jan. 8, 2022.
San Diego State has started its league season with at least nine victories in its first 10 games for the third time in the Brian Dutcher era. (also: 2019-20 (10-0) and 2022-13 (9-1).
At UNLV (1-24-26), SDSU shot .565 from the field, .615 from long distance & .846 from the line becoming the ONLY Aztec team to do so since at least the start of the 1996-97 season (960 games).
San Diego State owns a 170-49 record (77.6 percent) since the start of the 2019-20 campaign, which is the FOURTH BEST record in the nation. SDSU trails Gonzaga at 195-31 (86.3 percent), Houston at 201-34 (85.5 percent) and Duke at 178-47 (79.1 percent) and is ahead of the likes of Connecticut 169-53 (76.1 percent) and Kansas 170-55 (75.6 percent).
SDSU ranks No. 2 in the nation with 39.2 bench points per game and has totaled at least 40 bench points nine times in 20 games, which included an astounding 69 bench points versus Whittier College (12-22-25)., and in 16 of its 20 games, SDSU has totaled 30+ bench points.
With 13 points at UNLV, Reese Dixon-Waters passed the 1,000-point career milestone and enters the Utah State game with 1,021 points in his college career. He is the 13th Aztec to surpass the 1,000-career point milestone in Brian Dutcher’s nine seasons guiding the program.
At UNLV, Miles Byrd became the only player in the nation, since at least the 1996-97 season, with a game in which he scored at least 23 points, was perfect from beyond the arc on a minimum of five attempts, perfect from the line on a minimum of four attempts and had at least five assists and four steals.
Miles Byrd is the only player in the nation this season, the third since the start of the 2019-20 campaign, and the only Aztec since at least the start of the 1996-97 season, who has had at least 8 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 blocks, 4 steals and has scored no more than 6 points in a single game. (at GCU, 1-21-26)
Under Brian Dutcher, the Aztecs have held opponents to 60 points or less 124 times and have won 117 of those games (117-7, 94.4 percent). Overall, Dutcher’s Aztecs have held their opponent to 60 or fewer points in 43.4 percent (124-of-286) of the games he has coached.
SDSU has won 12 of its last 14 games, with one of those two losses coming against Arizona, the No. 1 ranked team in the nation.
San Diego State is 12-2 in its last 14 games and has limited those opponents to 67.4 points per game, which includes a triple overtime game against Boise State, versus going 3-3 and allowing 79.2 points in its first six games.
Since the start of the 2005-06 campaign, San Diego State owns the FIFTH BEST record in the nation, 518-185 (.737), the SIXTH best home mark 288-39 (.881), plus is TENTH in road contests 142-97 (.594).
Miles Byrd is the only Aztec since at least the start of the 1999-00 season to be perfect from three-point range on a minimum of five attempts.
The Aztecs are filling it up on the offensive end of the floor. Through 20 games, they’re averaging 0.9 points per game. Among five seasons where it scored at an 80-plus point per game clip, SDSU’s best scoring team at the Division I level was its 1970-71 squad, its first as a Division I program, which averaged 86.9 points per game. The program’s best scoring year in the Mountain West era, 77.1 points per game, was the 2017-18 squad, Brian Dutcher’s first year leading the program.
Brian Dutcher is the most successful coach in the history of Mountain West games...and it’s not even close. Dutcher has a winning percentage of 75.1percent (115-39) which is nearly 10 percent better than the next best win percentage, which belongs to Lon Kruger (2002-11) who won 65.5 percent (72-38) of his league games.
According to Kenpom.com, San Diego State’s defense, in league games, ranks No. 1 in two-point field goal percentage, turnover percentage, steal percentage, & block percentage and No. 2 in overall defensive efficiency and effective field goal percentage.
SDSU has shot 50-plus percent in seven, all victories, of its last 10 games, and is 75-2 in its last 77 games when it shoots at least 50 percent from the field.
SDSU has started its conference season 9-1 and has won at least nine of its first 10 games for the third time in Brian Dutcher’s nine seasons (also: 2019-20, started 15-0 & 2022-23, started 9-1) and as a team, it is the sixth time in the last 16 years the program has gotten off to at least a 9-1 start in Mountain West play (also: 2015-16, started 11-0, 2013-14, started 10-0 & 2010-11, started 12-1).
Magoon Gwath is the only player in the nation who in 15 games is shooting 57.9 percent from downtown (min. 19 att.) and has blocked 22 shots.
San Diego State ranks No. 2 in bench points and percentage of bench points vs. total points among the top 10 bench scoring teams in the nation. The Aztecs are getting 48.5 percent of its offensive production from its reserves (784-of-1,618).
The Aztecs bench is out scoring its opponent’s reserves by 20.6 points per game. SDSU’s bench has scored 784 points through 20 games, an average of 39.2 per game, compared to its opposition’s 371 points, an average of 18.6.
BJ Davis (22 pts, 11 rebs, 6 assts, 4 stls) became the second Aztec since at least the 1996-97 season to total at least 20 pts, 10 rebs, 5 assts & 4 stls in the same game (also Jamaal Franklin vs. Redlands on Dec. 30, 2011) and the first to do it against a Division I opponent.
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.
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 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).