Aztecs basketball
What: SDSU vs. Arizona Wildcats
Where: PHX Arena in Phoenix
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday
How to watch: ESPN2
When San Diego State plays this Saturday, it will have a tall task ahead: trying to compete against the No. 1 ranked basketball team in the country while on the road and on national television.
Yet the team will go into the contest against the undefeated Arizona Wildcats with some momentum, on a modest win streak capped by a defeat of conference rival Air Force by 23 points Wednesday night at home.
SDSU has won four of its last five.
Check out the highlights from our win last night! #GoAztecs pic.twitter.com/DOJaOpFPva
— San Diego State Men's Basketball (@Aztec_MBB) December 18, 2025
“We had 27 assists on 31 baskets (against Air Force); that’s unheard of,” head coach Brian Dutcher said during the post-game press conference. “That’s really good basketball.”
Wednesday’s game was the Aztecs’ (6-3, 1-0 MWC) first contest against another Mountain West Conference team this season. Although Air Force (3-9, 0-1) has one of the worst records in college basketball, the Falcons went toe-to-toe with the Aztecs in the first half. SDSU led by only three points at halftime.
After that, San Diego State pulled away, led by the dynamic play of junior guard BJ Davis, who had 19 points off the bench. Davis, despite not being a starter, is the Aztecs’ leading scorer and as of Thursday, leads the NCAA in scoring by a bench player, averaging 13 points a game. He’s also putting up two assists and 2.7 rebounds per contest.
In four of SDSU’s nine games so far, the team’s leading scorer has been junior guard Miles Byrd, who’s averaging just under 10 points to go along with 3.6 rebounds and 2.6 assists.
Seven-foot defensive-minded center Magoon Gwath, the team’s resident big man and one of its most high-profile players, is still recovering seven months after surgery to repair a severe knee injury. He was only cleared for full contact last month and is averaging about 10 points and 4.6 rebounds in the seven games he’s played so far.
“Our defense was solid (against Air Force), but our ball screen coverage wasn’t very good, and they’ll have to be a lot better against Arizona on Saturday,” Dutcher said.
Arizona has won five straight meetings with the Aztecs and leads the overall series, 25-7. The Wildcats won the most recent matchup on Nov. 22, 2022. San Diego State’s last win was Nov. 23, 2011.
SDSU will need Gwath – and the roster as a whole – to step up big time if it intends to be competitive against the 10-0 Wildcats. ESPN Analytics gives San Diego State just a 6.7% chance of emerging as the victor.
Why? Half the games that Arizona has won this season have been against Top 20 teams, including Florida, UCLA and Connecticut and the team is averaging 90 points a game. The Aztecs, on the other hand, have faced only one ranked team so far, Michigan, and were thoroughly embarrassed, losing by 40 points, 94-54 on Nov 24.
SDSU averages just shy of 82 points a game.
The other two San Diego State losses were a mixed bag. The team suffered a grueling, one-point, double overtime loss to Troy on Nov. 18, but lost by 10 to Baylor on Nov. 26. That contest was the team’s third game in three days as part of the Players Era tournament in Las Vegas.
Due to its ups and downs in the first seven weeks of the season, San Diego State currently sits in seventh place, based on winning percentage, in the 12-team Mountain West.
In addition, as Dutcher pointed out, the team has only played three games since Thanksgiving. After Saturday, SDSU has two more December games, Monday versus Whitter and Dec. 30 at San Jose State.
Then the action picks up. The Aztecs face nine opponents in January as they shift their attention to conference foes. It also will be the program’s last run through the Mountain West, as San Diego State, along with Boise State, Colorado State and Fresno State, are jumping to the Pac-12, effective July 1.
“What I like best now is that we’re finally playing games,” Dutcher said following the win against Air Force. “We played the fewest games of any team in the country, and we’ve gotten better through practice, but practice is tedious, and we’re ready to move on beyond practice at this point.”
