SAN DIEGO – Looking to get back to its winning ways, the San Diego State men’s basketball team hosts Utah Valley at Viejas Arena on Wednesday evening, after going 1-2 at last week’s Players Era Festival.

 

OFF THE BOUNCE
On Wednesday evening at Steve Fisher Court at Viejas Arena in San Diego, the San Diego State Aztecs welcome the Utah Valley Wolverines to America’s Finest City for the initial match-up between the two programs.

Its game against Oregon at the Players Era Festival marked the second time since the start of the 1999-200 season, that the SDSU was successful on at least 65.0 percent of its field goal attempts against a Division I opponent, bettered only by a 69.6 percent (48-of-69) effort against Campbell on December 12, 2006, in a 119-82 victory. The Aztecs shot over 65.0 percent in each half; 69.0 percent (20-of-29) in the first half and 65.5 percent (19-of-29) in the second half.

Before its game against Oregon, San Diego State had never shot at least 65.0 percent in both halves of game since at least the start of the 1999-00 season.

Against Oregon, BJ Davis finished with a career-high 21 points and in five of the team’s six games played in last and this year’s Players Era Festival. In the event, Davis is averaging a team leading 14.3 points per game.

Reese Dixon Waters led the team in scoring (22 points) vs. Oregon at the Players Era Festival, and his nine field goals are a career high and the most since Magoon Gwath had nine vs. San Jose State (1/28/25). His 69.2 percent shooting is the best an Aztec has shot on a minimum of 13 attempts since Nick Boyd went 10-of-14 (.714) vs. Boise State (2/15/25).

Freshman Elzie Harrington earned his first start in his sixth game as an Aztec, which is the fewest games for a freshman to crack the starting line up since Jeremy Hemsley started each of the first 25 games of the 2015-16 season.

Elzie Harrington is the only true freshman in the nation who is shooting at least 90.0 percent from the bonus distance on a minimum of 11 attempts (10-of-11, 90.9 3PFG%).

Under Brian Dutcher, the Aztecs have held opponents to 60 points or less 119 times and have won 112 of those games (112-7, 94.1 percent). Overall, Dutcher’s Aztecs have held their opponent to 60 or fewer points in 43.9 percent (119-of-271) of the games he has coached. Nationally, only Houston (165), Virginia (150) & Liberty (133) have held opponents to 60 points or less more times than SDSU since the start of 2017-18.

San Diego State, which has reached the Mountain West Tournament championship game in seven of the first eight seasons in head coach Brian Dutcher’s tenure, looks to finish its time in the league building on its dominance with an unprecedented 17th Mountain West men’s basketball title. Entering the 2025-26 season, its last as a member of the conference, San Diego State has won 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 first eight seasons and is averaging 24.8 wins per season coming into the 2025-26 campaign.

In the team’s opening game of the 2025 Player Era Festival, freshman Elzie Harrington led the squad with career-highs in points (15), field goals (6), and field goal attempts (9). For the season, he is shooting 61.5 percent (24-of-39), which includes 10-of-11 (90.9 percent) from the bonus distance.

Brian Dutcher reached the 200-win plateau with a 73-57 victory against Idaho State (11-9-25), becoming just 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 owns a 158-47 record (77.1 percent) since the start of the 2019-20 campaign. That’s the FOURTH BEST record in the nation, trailing Gonzaga’s 1781-31 (85.4 percent), Houston’s 190-33 (85.2 percent) and Duke’s 167-46 (78.4 percent) and ahead of the likes of Kansas’ 1661-52 (75.6 percent) and Baylor ‘s 153-51 (75.0 percent) records.

San Diego State owns the SEVENTH BEST record in the nation since the start of the 2005-06 campaign, 506-183 (.734), and is 280-39 (.878) in home games in that time frame which is the SIXTH BEST in the nation.

Against Troy, Miles Byrd made a half-court shot at the buzzer in regulation to tie the game at 89-89 and force overtime. It was SDSU’s first half-court buzzer beater at the end of regulation to tie or win a game since Brandon Heath made one in an 87-84 victory over Murray State on Nov. 10, 2006.

In making his season debut and going 5-of-5 vs. Troy, Magoon Gwath became just the third Aztec since at least the 1996-97 season to record at least 20 points without missing a field goal (also Aerick Sanders vs. Eastern Washington on Dec. 20, 2003, and Billy White on Feb. 14, 2009, vs. Wyoming).

Junior guard Miles Byrd finished the Idaho State game with six assists and six steals and is the first Aztec, since at least the start of the 1996-97 season, to have those two stats in a game against a Division I opponent.

Pharaoh Compton scored a career-high 14 points on 7-of-7 shooting in just 11:04 of time on the floor. Compton is the second Aztec under Brian Dutcher to have a game with a perfect field goal percentage on a minimum of 7 attempts (also: Magoon Gwath vs. Nevada on Jan. 25, 2025) and the sixth in the Brian Dutcher/Steve Fisher era. He enters the Players Era Festival shooting 92.3 percent (12-of-13 FG) which ranks No 1 in the nation with a minimum of 10 FG attempts.

With seven boards vs. Long Beach State, Tae Simmons is one of four, 6-6 or shorter, true freshmen who has come off the bench against a Division I opponent this year and grabbed at least seven rebounds.

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).

The Aztecs return three of their four leading scorers from last season: Miles Byrd (12.3 ppg), BJ Davis (9.0 ppg) and Magoon Gwath (8.5 ppg) and will see the return of Reese Dixon-Waters (9.6 ppg in 2023-24) who missed the 2024-25 campaign with a foot injury.

and Gonzaga (at Pepperdine) are second with 16 wins.