SAN DIEGO – After seeing its four-game win streak go by the wayside on Saturday evening at Colorado State, the San Diego State men’s basketball program looks to get back to its winning ways on Tuesday night at 8 p.m. PT when it plays the San Jose State Spartans at Provident Credit Union Event Center in San Jose, Calif.
OFF THE BOUNCE
The Aztecs and Spartans are meeting for the 86th time, with SDSU holding a 50-35 advantage in the all-time series, which includes a 71-68 win for San Diego State over SJSU two weeks ago at Viejas Arena. In the Mountain West era, SDSU has a 20-1 lead in the series, including 7-1 at Provident Credit Union Event Center, but overall is 14-26 in San Jose.
At Colorado State on Saturday night, Magoon Gwath blocked two shots and established a new San Diego State freshmen blocks record. Gwath recorded his 51st and 52 swats of the campaign passing Skylar Spencer who had held the mark, 51 blocks, since his initial college season of 2012-13. In addition, Gwath is now tied with Malcolm Thomas for No. 9 on the program’s single season blocks list and enters tonight’s game one block from moving into a tie for No. 8 with Valentine Izundu who send 53 shots back to where they came from in 2016-17.
San Diego State, one of the most dominant defensive teams in the nation ranked in the top 20 in Kenpom’s Adjusted Defensive Efficiency in nine of the last 14 years and in the top 10 in seven of the last 14 campaigns, is currently No. 12 in that ranking. Additionally, the Aztecs are No. 1 in block percentage, No. 7 in 2-point percentage defense, No. 5 in effective field goal percentage defense, and No. 22 3-point percentage defense according to Kenpom.
Head men’s basketball coach Brian Dutcher reached a Mountain West coaching milestone with the team’s 63-61 win over Wyoming on February 1. Dutcher became just the fourth coach in league history to record 100 conference wins. He joined Steve Fisher (No. 1 with 168 wins), Leon Rice (No. 2 with 152 wins), and Steve Alford (No. 3 with 125 wins) as the only coaches in MW history to record triple digit 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.
Sophomore Miles Byrd was named one of the final 10 players in the nation vying for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame’s Julius Erving Award for the top small forward in college basketball. An all around talent, he entered the week as the only player in the nation who is shooting a minimum of .402 from the field, .363 from distance, .857 from the line with at least 50 assists, 39 steals and 19 blocks.
Since the start of the 2013-14 season, when the current slate of teams in the Mountain West came together, San Diego State’s 155-53 (.745) is the best in the MW in conference games. Boise State ranks second with a 141-72 (.662) mark while Tuesday’s opponent, San Jose State, is 38-171 (.182) and ranks No. 11.
San Diego State is the No. 2 ranked team in the nation in field goal percentage defense (.368), trailing only No. 1 Tennessee (.362).
San Diego State is one of two teams in the nation which is limiting opponents to no more than a combined 36.8 percent overall from the floor and 29.7 percent from long distance. (also: Tennessee)
Since the start of the 2017-18 season, when Brian Dutcher took the helm of the San Diego State program, he has the No. 6 win percentage in the nation (192-64, 75.0 percent) and since the start of the 2019-20 campaign his Aztecs are 149-40 (78.8 percent), the third best record in the country.
How rare was San Diego State’s 68-76 loss on January 18 to UNLV, a Quad 3 defeat? Until that night, it had been 65 games or 1,792 days since the Aztecs had lost to either a Quad 3 or Quad 4 opponent. The last Quad 3 or Quad 4 team to defeat SDSU was Quad 3-UNLV on February 22, 2020, which halted that year’s longest win-streak to open the year, 26 games, and was the only loss the Aztecs suffered in the regular season.
In the Aztecs win over Colorado State (Jan. 14) sophomore Miles Byrd scored a career-high 25 points, including five 3-pointers, grabbed six rebounds and had seven steals. He is the first player in Mountain West history to have a game with those numbers and just the third in the nation in the last 16 years.
In its 20 Division I games, San Diego State has held nine opponents to their worst shooting game of the season and three had their second worst field goal percentage games.
With the Aztecs 69-50 win over Nevada (Jan. 25), San Diego State is 98-7 in the Brian Dutcher era, when it limits its opponent to 60 or fewer points. Overall, the Aztecs have won 32 straight when holding the opposition to 60 points or less and are 105-8 in its last 113 in the category.
In San Diego State’s last 11 wins it shot .441 from the field, including .324 from the bonus distance, and averaged 73.5 points per game, with an average margin of victory of 13.0 points. Defensively, in those games, the team limited its opponents to a .354 shooting percentage, including .287 from beyond the arc and for the season has limited the opposition to 36.8 percent shooting overall, which ranks No. 2 nationally.
The Aztecs have held 11 of their 19 Division I opponents to less than 40 percent shooting, seven games of less than 35.0 percent and three under 30.0 percent. SDSU limited California to just 25.5 percent shooting on Dec. 21, the third lowest opponent field goal percentage shooting night in the Brian Dutcher era.
San Diego State, which in 2024 reached the Mountain West Tournament championship game for the seventh time in head coach Brian Dutcher’s seven seasons, looks for its unprecedented 17th Mountain West men’s basketball title. Entering the 2024-25 season, San Diego State has won nine regular season and seven Mountain West tournament titles, the most of any program that has ever been a member of the league.
Brian Dutcher is in his eighth season as San Diego State’s head coach and his 26th season on the Aztec sidelines. In his seven-plus seasons as head coach, he has led the Aztecs to five conference titles, seven Mountain West championship game appearances, a 192-64 overall record and 100-36 mark in league games, both league leading in that time frame, 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.