SAN DIEGO - The San Diego State Aztecs host the Nevada Wolf Pack for the final time as a member of the Mountain West on Saturday evening. The game is set to tip at 7 p.m. PT and will be broadcast on CBS Sports Network.
OFF THE BOUNCE
The Aztecs and Wolf Pack are meeting for the 37th time overall, 17th time in San Diego and 14th time at Steve Fisher Court. SDSU leads the series 29-7, which includes a 15-1 mark in America’s Finest City.
San Diego State has never lost to Nevada at Viejas Arena (13-0). The Wolf Pack have not defeated SDSU in San Diego since Nov. 14, 1998 (9,954 days)
The Aztecs are filling it up on the offensive end of the floor. Through 23 games, they’re averaging 80.2 points per game. Among five complete 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.
In going 11-2 in its last 13 games, San Diego State has held those opponents to an average of 66.8 points on 37.2 percent shooting (277-of-744) from the field, including 31.0 percent (116-of-374) from beyond the arc, with 117 steals (9.0/g), 55 blocks (4.2/g) and forced 204 turnovers (15.7/g).
According to Kenpom.com, San Diego State’s defense, in league games, ranks No. 1 in overall defensive efficiency, two-point field goal percentage defense, turnover percentage, steal percentage, & block percentage and No. 2 in effective field goal percentage and offensive rebound percentage.
At Air Force (2-7-26), the Aztecs shot 56.3 percent from the floor in the first half. It was the10th time in the last 13 games that San Diego State shot at least 50 percent in the first half and the 13th time this season in 23 first halves. In addition, in 25-of-46 halves this season SDSU has shot at least 50 percent.
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 combine those three percentages in a game since at least the start of the 1996-97 season (960 games).
San Diego State owns a 172-50 record (77.5 percent) since the start of the 2019-20 campaign, which is the FOURTH BEST record in the nation. SDSU trails Gonzaga at 198-32 (86.1 percent), Houston at 205-34 (85.8 percent) and Duke at 181-48 (79.0 percent) and is ahead of the likes of Arizona 173-54 (76.2 percent) and Connecticut 172-54 (76.1 percent) .
San Diego State has started its league season with at least 11 victories in its first 13 games for the third time in the Brian Dutcher era. (also: 2019-20 (13-0) and 2023-24 (11-2))
With 13 points at UNLV, Reese Dixon-Waters passed 1,000-career points and Jeremiah Oden joined him against Wyoming. The pair enter the Nevada game with 1,075 and 1,013 career points, respectively. Dixon-Waters is the 13th and Oden the 14th Aztecs to surpass the 1,000-career point milestone in a Scarlet and Black jersey in Brian Dutcher’s nine seasons guiding the program.
SDSU ranks No. 3 in the nation with 37.1 bench points per game and has totaled at least 40 bench points nine times in 23 games, which includes an astounding 69 bench points versus Whittier College (12-22-25)., and in 17 of its 23 games, SDSU has totaled 30+ bench points.
Under Brian Dutcher, the Aztecs have held opponents to 60 points or less 125 times and have won 118 of those games (118-7, 94.4 percent). Overall, Dutcher’s Aztecs have held opponents to 60 or fewer points in 44.3 percent (125-of-289) of the games he has coached.
SDSU has won 14 of its last 17 games, with its three losses all being Quad 1 games and one of those coming against Arizona, the No. 1 ranked team in the nation .
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)
San Diego State is 14-3 in its last 17 games and has limited those opponents to 66.6 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.
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 (5-of-5 at UNLV, 1-24-26).
Since the start of the 2005-06 campaign, San Diego State owns the FIFTH BEST record in the nation, 520-186 (.737), the FIFTH best home mark 289-39 (.881), plus is TENTH in road contests 143-98 (.593).
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 74.5 percent (117-40) which is nine percentage points 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.
SDSU has shot 50-plus percent in eight, all victories, of its last 13 games, and is 76-2 in its last 78 games when it shoots at least 50 percent from the field.
SDSU has started its conference season 11-2. It is the sixth time in the last 16 years the program has gotten off to at least a 11-2 start through 13 games in Mountain West play (also: 2019-20 (13-0), 2022-23 (11-2) and 2015-16, 2013-14 & 2010-11 each started 12-1).
Magoon Gwath is the only player in the nation who in no more than 15 games is shooting 57.9 percent from downtown (min. 19 att.) and has blocked 22 shots.
San Diego State ranks No. 3 in bench points and No. 2 in percentage of bench points vs. total points among the top 10 bench scoring teams in the nation. The Aztecs are getting 46.3 percent of its offensive production from its reserves (854-of-1,844).
The Aztecs bench is out scoring its opponent’s reserves by 18.0 points per game. SDSU’s bench has scored 854 points through 23 games, an average of 37.1 per game, compared to its opposition’s 440 points, an average of 19.1.
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).