Attention, wealthy potential benefactors of Aztecs basketball:

See what an Aztecs rival coach said Saturday about where things stand financially in men’s college hoops and March Madness.

“We’re going to find out after tomorrow, probably, what the price tag is to go to a Sweet 16,” Utah State coach Jerrod Calhoun said of the next round of games.

With an upset victory Sunday against No. 1 seed Arizona at SDSU’s Viejas Arena, ninth-seeded Utah State would go to its first Sweet 16.

Last year, no mid-major reached the Sweet 16 — a round that San Diego State, a mid-major, got to in 2023 en route to the national championship game and in 2024, losing by a lot to Connecticut.

Because the power-conference programs are ramping up their spending on players, such breakthroughs may be becoming more difficult.

“It’s certainly an ever-changing landscape,” Calhoun said.

Doing what it can, Utah State has joined the spending surge.

Calhoun said the program’s player payroll was tripled this season to $2.4 million through donations. The boosters included the coach, who chipped in $150,000 of his own money.

Arizona’s player payroll isn’t clear, but it’s safe to assume the Wildcats are paying somewhere in the range of $10 million between NIL and revenue-sharing money.

Generally, a player who’s an NBA prospect can command millions of dollars from a college. Arizona boasts “two to four NBA guys,” said Calhoun, not controversially.

The first of the two afternoon games Sunday at SDSU will match Kansas against a resurgent St. John’s program that seeks its first Sweet 16 since 1994.

There’s a financial thermal boosting St. John’s here in warm San Diego, coach Rick Pitino saying that increased donations toward the player payroll have helped the team win.

St. John’s alum Mike Repole, a businessman with a Forbes-estimated net worth of $1.6 billion, “has been awesome to us — a big, big supporter,” Pitino said Saturday.

Per a New York Times report this month, Pitino said he told reluctant St. John’s officials that luring top transfers would require Repole’s money.

Repole, who also donates to non-sports programs at St. John’s, sat behind the team’s bench Saturday in the victory over Northern Iowa.

Among Aztecs alums, there are many millionaires and even a number of billionaires.

Would it make sense for any of them to cover a portion of SDSU’s player payroll?

One local billionaire who has donated tens of millions of dollars to Aztecs athletics is a non-SDSU alum, John Moores, a University of Houston graduate. Moores has also funded non-sports endeavors at the school, and donated enormous sums of money in the fight against cancer.

Advantaged by a much higher rate of sellout crowds than the norm on the West Coast, San Diego State’s men’s basketball program nonetheless is facing stiff economic challenges, as does the school’s football program and, above all, the athletic department as a whole.

Many of the NCAA’s power-conference hoops programs, meantime, will try to further leverage their financial advantages beyond what their media deals provide.

“We’ve got to go out there and raise $6 million, $7 million as coaches — whether it be golf tournaments, speaking engagements, whatever we can do,” Pitino said.

With the increased spending on basketball players, has come soaring ticket sales for St. John’s games — a large feat in the ultra-competitive New York City entertainment market.

“Madison Square Garden has helped immensely because we’ve gone from three to five games to 11 games there,” said Pitino, who won a national title with Kentucky and one with Louisville. “When we took over (three years ago), they played four games in The Garden, but they were losing $300,000 to $400,000 every game.”

The two games Sunday at SDSU should be a spectacle for hoops lovers.

Some 20 players will go on to play professionally. Several will be taken in the first or second round of the NBA draft.

Off the court, count on this: the donation game will continue to heat up.