PHOENIX — San Diego State coach Brian Dutcher was asked about the Aztecs’ next opponent, No. 1-ranked Arizona on Saturday night at the Mortgage Matchup Center.
“We’ve played (No. 2) Michigan and got beat by 40, and this team is ranked higher than them,” Dutcher said. “Obviously, it’s a bit of a concern.”
A concern — and an opportunity.
What was billed as one of the most anticipated seasons in school history hasn’t quite gone as planned, beginning with a home loss against Troy followed six days later by the most lopsided L in the Dutcher/Steve Fisher era at SDSU. Even in their wins, the Aztecs often haven’t resembled a team with eight returning players, two NBA prospects, three preseason all-conference selections plus veteran transfers and a pair of promising freshmen.
The Aztecs plunged as low as No. 126 in the NCAA’s NET metric and still are a middling 83rd, well below the range for at-large NCAA Tournament consideration. After opening the season at No. 29 in the Kenpom metric, they’ve slipped to 46th.
But they can erase all that analytics angst, can right the listing ship, can save the season, in a mere 40 minutes Saturday (7:30 p.m. PST, ESPN2) by closing their eyes and throwing a haymaker punch.
“If you were to steal a game like that,” Dutcher said, “you’d feel pretty good about your nonconference schedule, that you put yourself in position to be an NCAA Tournament team.”
“That would be big time, getting that win,” forward Pharaoh Compton said.
“That’s any player’s dream, to play the No. 1 team in the country,” fellow forward Magoon Gwath said.
Pharaoh Compton #5 of San Diego State dunks against Justin Hinds #15 of Air Force at Viejas Arena on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025 in San Diego, California. (Meg McLaughlin / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Of course, they’ll have to beat Arizona. Good luck with that.
SDSU is 1-5 all-time against No. 1-ranked teams in the Associated Press poll, the lone victory coming against Alabama during the magical run to the 2023 national championship game. The five losses are by an average of, gulp, 18 points.
And the Wildcats (10-0) already have four wins against teams currently in the AP top 25 and a fifth against a team that was ranked at the time. They beat the last three national champions, topping No. 23 Florida on a neutral court and No. 5 UConn in Storrs, Conn. They beat then-No. 15 UCLA in Los Angeles. They beat No. 21 Auburn, a Final Four team last season, at home. They beat No. 15 Alabama by 21 last weekend in Birmingham, Ala.
Usually at this time of year, power conference programs are playing a stream of home “buy” games against Fairleigh Dickinson and Gardner Webb. SDSU is No. 46 in Kenpom … and statistically is Arizona’s sixth most difficult opponent in 11 games.
The other wins have come by 26, 35, 30, 37 and 34 points.
There is size (7-foot-2, 260-pound center Motiejus Krivas), proven veterans (seniors Jaden Bradley and Tobe Awaka) and promising freshmen (Koa Peat and Brayden Burries). They’re ninth in the nation in scoring margin (22.6 points), fifth in rebounding margin (13.1), seventh in shooting (52.7%), sixth in offensive efficiency, ninth in defensive efficiency.
“They’re similar to Michigan, and we saw them earlier,” junior guard BJ Davis said. “We kind of know what we’re up against.”
Arizona forward Koa Peat, center, shoots as UCLA forward Steven Jamerson II, left, and guard Brandon Williams defend during the second half of a Hall of Fame Series college basketball game Friday, Nov. 14, 2025, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
The bigger question is, do the Wildcats?
The Aztecs’ resume is hardly fear-inducing, a 6-3 record with their best win coming at home against Utah Valley by 11 points. There’s a power conference win against Oregon, but the Ducks didn’t have 7-foot center Nate Bittle for the second half, were in the midst of a five-game losing streak and are 113th in the NET.
One person who won’t take them lightly, though, is Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd. He was an assistant on Mark Few’s staff at Gonzaga when the Aztecs beat an 11th-ranked Bulldogs team in Spokane, Wash., in 2010 and a 12th-ranked team at Viejas Arena in 2017.
“San Diego State’s a program we respect,” Lloyd said. “Coach Dutch, he’s done a great job there. That program with Coach Fisher before him, they’re on a long run of being very successful. I don’t think they’re ranked right now, but I want to make sure our guys understand that just because they don’t have a number next to their name doesn’t mean they’re not as good as the teams we’ve played already.
“Our guys need to be locked in and understand that Saturday is a super important game, and it’s going to be a battle.”
This used to be a semi-regular matchup between West Coast powers, either by design or by fate. The team met 11 times between 2002 and 2014. One two-year stretch included matchups in the Diamond Head Classic final in December 2012, a nonconference game at Viejas Arena in November 2013, the Sweet 16 in Anaheim in March 2014 and the Maui Invitational final in November 2014.
The most recent meeting, in the Maui semifinals in 2022, was a lopsided 87-70 Arizona win, but it also, arguably, changed SDSU’s season. The Aztecs coaches were so impressed with the Wildcats’ three-out, two-in offense that they adopted it midseason and rode it to the national championship game four months later.
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – NOVEMBER 25: Reese Dixon-Waters #39 of the San Diego State Aztecs celebrates at the end of the first half of a Players Era Championship Tournament game against the Oregon Ducks at Michelob ULTRA Arena on November 25, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ian Maule/Getty Images)
Dutcher is hoping for a similar transformation Saturday.
Maybe Gwath will shed the uncertainty about his surgically repaired knee and become a double-double machine. Maybe Miles Byrd will recapture the form that projected him as an early second-round pick in last summer’s NBA Draft and the Mountain West preseason player of the year. Maybe Reese Dixon-Waters will rediscover his stroke and look like the guy who had 22 points on 9 of 13 shooting in the 97-80 win against Oregon. Maybe the old Aztecs defense will return.
Maybe the moment will miraculously unlock something. Maybe opportunity will incite excellence. Maybe playing in an NBA arena will inspire an epic performance.
Or maybe the Wildcats will do to the Aztecs what they did to Alabama a week earlier, or what Michigan did to the Aztecs.
“We’re still a work in progress,” Dutcher said a day before his team struggled for 25 minutes against an Air Force team with metrics in the 300s. “I don’t know what I’m going to see night to night as a team, and that’s always concerning as a coach. They’re putting their work in. We made a step forward (last week). Now we have to continue to grow. We can’t fall back again and be an up-and-down team.
“That’s the challenge for any coach.”
San Diego State (6-3) vs. No. 1 Arizona (10-0)
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: Mortgage Matchup Center, Phoenix
TV: ESPN2
Radio: 760-AM