San Diego State men’s basketball games remain a very good time for the thousands of San Diegans who attend them.
Even as the sport tilts further toward the much-wealthier programs, locals here still choose to endure gnarly traffic and crowd onto State’s hilltop campus to watch Mountain West Conference men’s competition.
The charged-up atmosphere Saturday night reminded us that few (if any) other West Coast schools muster a more vibrant game-day environment than SDSU week in and week out.
San Diego State fans dived into the whole show Saturday, thundering their approval for every player introduced on Senior Night and a dozen former players introduced at halftime and urging on Brian Dutcher’s club throughout an 89-86 win over UNLV that may stand as the best back-and-forth game of the regular season.
The players lifted themselves out of a three-week funk while further demonstrating they’re talented enough to win the conference tournament and a March Madness berth this week in Las Vegas.
Guard BJ Davis had his finest game in a three-year Aztecs career, scoring 30 points in just 26 minutes and making two late-game stops against a conference player of the year candidate. Was that BJ or D.J. — as in D.J. Gay, the smooth point guard of the Kawhi Leonard Era?
Pharaoh Compton, a sophomore from Chicago, led a first-half rally by swatting a shot and running the court. A senior from Long Beach, guard Reese Dixon-Waters powered for timely buckets.
Realizing this may have been the final home game for several players, hundreds of fans among the 12,414 stayed in the arena well after Davis’ steal clinched the victory.
Three-year Aztecs standout Miles Byrd chatted with well-wishers on the court long after Dutcher lauded the guard for toughing out a lower-leg injury. Byrd, gimping toward the exit, finally left the court and toward what he hopes will be his third straight visit to March Madness.
So the Miracle on the Mesa lives on.
A program that was often borderline irrelevant pre-Fish — coach Steve Fisher — still succeeds at bringing together large numbers of fans.
A sixth consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament remains in play. And as athletic director John David Wicker noted after Saturday’s win, SDSU’s pedigree in the tournament tends to improve its seeding.
But the economic headwinds challenging San Diego State and other mid-major programs may be the bigger story to the 2025-26 season.
Ramped-up spending by college basketball’s big-boy outfits, empowered by massive broadcasting revenues and wealthy boosters, stretched the gap between schools in the power conferences and the likes of SDSU.
Though Wicker gets an A+ for scheduling Michigan and Arizona, seeing those NBA Lite, well-paid teams against SDSU brought home a sobering truth for me.
The big-boy programs aren’t going to allow SDSU anywhere near another national title game, if it comes down to spending power.
Taj Degourville #24 of San Diego State celebrates after three-pointer against UNLV at Viejas Arena on Friday, March 6, 2026 in San Diego, California. (Meg McLaughlin / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
My hope for San Diego State, then: That a billionaire adopts the basketball Aztecs, and pays up to retain or land one player per year that Dutcher and assistants believe in who otherwise would go to a power-conference school.
SDSU will join the revamped Pac-12 Conference next season. Expect the Aztecs to reap economic gains, in time, from joining a league that includes five Mountain West schools as well as Gonzaga, Texas State, Oregon State and Washington State.
But much more financial muscle will be needed for SDSU to have a realistic chance of returning to Final Four, much less the national championship game.
I draw no hope from President Donald Trump’s musings this week, that he’d like to “fix” college sports. Keep in mind, the Supreme Court ruled against the NCAA in a unanimous 9-0 decision five years ago, finding that its restrictions on benefits for college athletes violated antitrust laws. SCOTUS doesn’t pitch many 9-0 shutouts.
A reconstituted Pac-12 conference may not excite many would-be benefactors among billionaires. Yet billionaires are becoming more numerous in this country, and it might take only one who bleeds red and black to lend Dutcher a firm hand.
If any would-be benefactors need a reference about the coaching staff, they can start with the folks who seed the NCAA Tournament.
“I’ve had a committee member tell me that, ‘You guys have proven that you can win in the tournament,’” Wicker said. “So, traditionally, we get seeded very well because of the work that we’ve done. And that national title game (in ‘23) just helps amplify it.”
College basketball’s moneyed elite, meantime, will play for keeps with increasing gusto.
In November, Michigan beat the Aztecs by 40 points. Then the Wolverines won by 30 points against No. 21 Auburn and by 40 points against No. 12 Gonzaga.
Wicker had a close look at those Wolverines.
And, well, Wicker SDSU’s athletic director. And, um, the sports world serves up stunning upsets.
“We can beat anybody in the country if we go out and we play our game,” Wicker said. “If we play good defense, if we play efficient on the offensive end, if you play good Aztec defense and do the things you need to do, we can beat anybody.”