San Diego State\u2019s men\u2019s basketball team released its schedule on Monday. They have six non-conference home games, which is nice. But, this year there\u2019s no big-time program like Gonzaga coming to Viejas Arena.<\/p>\n
That is not due to a lack of trying.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to find someone that wants to come here,\u201d says head coach Brian Dutcher. \u201cThe success we\u2019ve had, people don\u2019t want to come to Viejas and play us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dutcher says they tried to set up a home-and-home against a major program but didn\u2019t have any takers this year, so their top early season games will be played at tournaments on neutral floors, like meeting Michigan and Oregon in Las Vegas in November.<\/p>\n
But the Aztecs did find a way to get a blue blood to come to Montezuma Mesa.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like the fact that we’re playing UCLA in an exhibition game here. Obviously, it’s not on the season package, but part of that is N.I.L. (Name, Image, Likeness) is a part of what we’re doing now,\u201d says Dutcher.<\/p>\n
The Bruins, winners of more national championships than any other program, will come to town for an exhibition on October 17th and unlike in years past, this one will be open to the public. Proceeds from ticket sales will go to the basketball program\u2019s fundraising efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m out there still raising money. We’re not the Big Ten where every school is splitting $80 million and the revenue sharing is easy,\u201d says Dutcher. \u201cSo, we’re still out there, raising money daily to try to be competitive and stay competitive at the highest level. Raising money in this UCLA exhibition is important to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Exhibitions like this used to be played behind closed doors. New rules allow them to invite a crowd, and for a matchup like this nobody in the stands or on the floor is going to think it doesn\u2019t count in the standings.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, that thing’s going to count when we’re on the floor. It’s going to count at every level!\u201d says Dutcher.<\/p>\n
Well, to an extent. It is still an exhibition, which is an important chance to get as many players as possible some game experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou’ll play a full bench, you won’t shorten your bench and just say, we’re only going to play seven guys,\u201d says Dutcher. \u201cWe’ll play everybody on the roster, in my opinion, and give everybody a look in that kind of environment to get our team ready for the season.\u201d<\/p>\n
SDSU joins the Pac-12 next year, so this season will be their last trip through the Mountain West Conference, something Coach Dutch might be looking forward to.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast trip to Laramie. Last trip to Albuquerque. Last trip to Air Force. I don’t think I’m going to miss any of those sites. They\u2019re hard to play at, and they’re hard to play at that altitude.\u201d<\/p>\n
They\u2019re leaving behind the thin air, but also quite a bit of cash. The Mountain West Conference is keeping the NCAA Tournament shares the Aztecs earned from all their appearances, including the run to the national championship game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey should be sending me a thank you card,\u201d says Dutcher. \u201cWe’re leaving them some money. I haven’t got it yet. So maybe when we leave, they’ll thank us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The entire Aztecs 2025-25 season schedule looks like this:<\/p>\n
2025-26 San Diego State Men\u2019s Basketball Schedule
(Conference game dates subject to change. Start times still TBD)<\/p>\n
Oct. 17 \u2013 +UCLA
Oct. 29 \u2013 +SAN DIEGO
Nov. 4 \u2013 LONG BEACH STATE
Nov. 9 \u2013 IDAHO STATE
Nov. 18 \u2013 TROY
Nov. 24 \u2013 ^vs. Michigan
Nov. 25 \u2013 ^vs. Oregon
Nov. 26\/27 \u2013 ^vs. TBD
Dec. 3 \u2013 UTAH VALLEY
Dec. 10 \u2013 LAMAR
Dec. 17 \u2013 *AIR FORCE
Dec. 20 \u2013 #vs. Arizona
Dec. 22 \u2013 WHITTIER COLLEGE
Dec. 30 \u2013 *at San Jose State
Jan. 3 \u2013 *BOISE STATE
Jan. 6 \u2013 *at Nevada
Jan. 10 \u2013 *FRESNO STATE
Jan. 13 \u2013 *at Wyoming
Jan. 17 \u2013 *NEW MEXICO
Jan. 20 \u2013 *at Grand Canyon
Jan. 24 \u2013 *at UNLV
Jan. 27 \u2013 *COLORADO STATE
Jan. 31 \u2013 *at Utah State
Feb. 3 \u2013 *WYOMING
Feb. 7 \u2013 *at Air Force
Feb. 14 \u2013 *NEVADA
Feb. 17 \u2013 *GRAND CANYON
Feb. 21 \u2013 *at Colorado State
Feb. 24 \u2013 *UTAH STATE
Feb. 28 \u2013 *at New Mexico
March 3 \u2013 *at Boise State
March 7 \u2013 *UNLV<\/p>\n
Note: home games are listed in ALL CAPS<\/p>\n
+ – exhibition; ^ – Players Era Festival (Las Vegas, Nev.); # – Naismith Hall of Fame Series (Phoenix, Ariz.); * – Mountain West game<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Diego State\u2019s men\u2019s basketball team released its schedule on Monday. They have six non-conference home games, which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,89716,726,724,721,17786,89717,85],"class_list":["post-128697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-aztecs","tag-basketball","tag-college-basketball","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-san-diego-state-university","tag-sdsu","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}