SAN DIEGO – The San Diego State men’s basketball team embarks on the program’s 106th season of competition on Tuesday evening when it hosts the Cal State Fullerton Titan at 7 p.m. at Steve Fisher Court at Viejas Arena.
OFF THE BOUNCE
On Tuesday evening, when San Diego State hosts Cal State Fullerton, SDSU opens its 106th season of men’s basketball, its 57th at the Division I level, and 10th under the direction of head coach Brian Dutcher.
The Aztecs and Titans are meeting for the 35th time overall and the third straight as a season opener. The last two meetings, both lid lifters at Viejas Arena, were on November 7, 2022 and November 6, 2023, and resulted in final scores of 80-57 and 83-57, respectively.
The Aztecs are currently in the midst of a five-game win streak against Cal State Fullerton, which began on December 21, 2004, is currently tied for the 10th longest active streak against a non-conference Division I opponent and SDSU’s 10-game win streak against the Titans from January 18, 1964, to January 4, 1969, is tied for the eighth longest against a single opponent in program history.
San Diego State begins its regular season home schedule hosting Cal State Fullerton for the third time in the last five years. The Aztecs are 2-0 in home openers against the Titans after emerging with an 80-57 victory to open the 2022-23 season and an 83-57 decision to start the 2023-24 campaign.
San Diego State is looking for its 42nd consecutive win against the current lineup of Big West schools. The last time an Aztec squad lost to a current member of the league was a season opening, 72-80, overtime defeat on November 19, 2004, against UC Santa Barbara.
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 currently riding a 21-game win streak in regular season home openers, against any opponent, ranked or not.
San Diego State reached the Mountain West Tournament championship game in eight of the nine seasons in head coach Brian Dutcher’s tenure, and won an unprecedented 17 Mountain West men’s basketball titles in its 27 years in the league. (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 initial nine seasons and has averaged 24.4 wins per season.
Brian Dutcher has compiled 220 victories in his nine seasons at the helm of the Aztecs’ program. He is 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’s roster totaled 6,725 minutes played last season. The Aztecs had three players exhaust their eligibility who totaled 1,884 minutes on the floor. As a sign of the times, with NIL and the transfer portal, the 2026-27 Aztecs return 984 minutes or 20.3 percent of the possible minutes from last season.
San Diego State returns just 14.5 percent of its offensive output compared to a year ago (374-of-2,580 points).
The Pac-12 announced its Impact List and sophomores Elzie Harrington, a guard, and forward Tae Simmons earned inclusion.
When the Aztecs take the floor against Cal State Fullerton, they will have a new conference affiliation, the fourth in their Division I history. The program made the leap to DI in the 1970-71 season and played in the Pacific Coast Athletic Association (PCAA) through the 1977-78 campaign. SDSU then joined the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) in 1978-79 and competed there until the end of the 1998-99 season. Its most recent stop was as a founding member of the Mountain West Conference from 1999-00 until it left after 2025-26 to join the Pac-12.
Since the start of the 2005-06 campaign, San Diego State owns an overall record of 525-191 (73.3 percent) and a 292-40 mark (88.0 percent) at Steve Fisher Court. Those are the SIXTH and FIFTH best records in the nation, respectively, in that timeframe.
San Diego State prepped for the regular season with three exhibition games in Tucson, Arizona against Arizona and two at Viejas Arena: vs. Southern California and Long Beach State.
San Diego State owns the SIXTH BEST record in the nation since the start of the 2009-10 campaign, 433-148 (.745), and is 239-31 (.885) in home contests in that time frame which is the SEVENTH BEST in the nation.
San Diego State is 16-13 (.552) under Brian Dutcher against AP top 25 teams. The Aztecs were 29-98 (.228) against AP top 25 teams prior to Dutcher taking over as head coach in 2017-18. SDSU’s .552 winning percentage against AP top 25 teams since the 2017-18 season is tied for the fifth highest in the country (min. 20 games). The top 5 consists of No. 1 Duke (.645), No. 2 Arizona (.635), No. 3 Gonzaga (.583), No. 4 Kansas (.571), and No. 5 San Diego State & Houston (.552).
With defense as its calling card, San Diego State has been a menace to opposing offenses. Since the start of the Fisher/Dutcher era, the 1999-00 season, SDSU has held its opponent to 40.0 percent or less from the field 405 times in 894 games (45.3 percent), recording 353 wins in those 405 games (87.2 percent). Under Brian Dutcher, since the start of the 2017-18 campaign, the Scarlet and Black has played 299 games and has limited the opponent to 40.0 percent shooting or less 155 times (155-of-299; 51.8 percent) and won 138 of those games (138-17; 89.0 percent).
San Diego State was 9-0 last season when it held its opponent to 60 or fewer points. In the Brian Dutcher era, his Aztecs have held their opponent to 60 points or less 126 times and have won 119 of those games (119-7, 94.4 percent). Overall, Dutcher’s Aztecs have held their opponent to 60 or fewer points in 42.1 percent (126-of-299) of the games he has coached.
San Diego State, one of the most dominant defensive teams in the nation, has ranked in the top 25 in Kenpom’s Adjusted Defensive Efficiency in 12 of the last 16 years, in the top 10 in seven of the last 16 campaigns, the top five in five seasons since the start of the 2010-11 season, and finished last season at No. 16 in that ranking.
Head men’s basketball coach Brian Dutcher is one of four coaches to reach 100 wins in Mountain West Conference games with his team’s 63-61 win over Wyoming on February 1, 2025. Dutcher joined Leon Rice (No. 1 with 170 wins), Aztecs Hall of Fame inductee Steve Fisher (No. 2 with 168 wins), and Steve Alford (No. 3 with 141 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.
Last year San Diego State had 24 scoring runs of at least 10-0 last season and was 15-4 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 90-13 in games in which they score at least 10 straight points.
In the Brian Dutcher era (since the start of the 2017-18 season), San Diego State has held over 50.0 percent of its opponents (155-of-299) to less than 40.0 percent field goal shooting, 24.7 percent to less than 35.0 percent from the field, and on 14 occasions limited the opposition to less than 30 percent shooting from the floor. The top defensive efforts, based on opponent field goal percentage, under Dutcher was a 14-of-62 (.226) defensive gem versus Texas Southern (Nov. 5, 2019) and a 14-of-57 (.246) effort at Fresno State (Feb. 24, 2024).
Brian Dutcher is in his 10th season as San Diego State’s head coach and his 28th on the Aztec sidelines. In his nine seasons as head coach, he has led the Aztecs to five conference titles, eight league championship game appearances, a 220-79 overall record and 120-44 mark in conference games, 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.