To say that the San Diego State men’s basketball team went through some changes in the offseason would be a vast understatement.
Following a disappointing 2025-26 season in which the team went 22-11, the Aztecs parted ways with the majority of its players.
“We have four returning players and nine new guys,” head coach Brian Dutcher said during an Oct. 13 press conference. “There’s a lot to learn.”
But despite the massive personnel shakeup, Dutcher, who returns for his 10th season with the team, is cautiously optimistic.
“I think defensively we’re probably where we need to be,” he said. “Offensively, I think we have a long ways to go, as far as playing with one another. That’s going to be a longer process. We have a lot of room to grow, offensively.”
If you haven’t kept track over the past few months, here’s a look at who’s out, who’s in, who stuck around and how well the Aztecs are expected to do this season.
Key departures
Among those who’ve departed since the spring are guard Reese Dixon-Waters, a fifth-year senior who averaged a team leading 13.1 points last season. Dixon-Waters, who entered the NBA draft but was not selected, signed with the Denver Nuggets’ minor league team on Oct. 23.
Also gone is BJ Davis, a guard who averaged 10.8 points and 3.2 rebounds in 22 minutes per game in 2025-26. He transferred to Creighton for his senior year. Miles Byrd, a senior who scored 10.4 points plus a team-leading 4.7 rebounds per game for SDSU last season, has taken his talents to Providence.
Also transferring out: Junior forward Pharoah Compton (Oregon); junior guard Taj DeGourville (Nebraska); senior forward Miles Heide (Virginia Tech), and seven-foot senior Magoon Gwath (DePaul).
Key holdovers
Among the few players from last season’s roster still with the team are 6-foot -5 sophomore guard Elzie Harrington (8 points, 2.3 assists in 2025-26) and six-foot-six second-year forward Tae Simmons (5.8 points, 3.4 rebounds).
Also returning: Thokbor Majak, a 7-foot-1 forward who averaged 0.3 points and 1.6 rebounds in 3.9 minutes per game off the bench last season, and junior Latrell Davis, a 6-foot-3 junior guard from Leeds, England who redshirted last season.
“It was hard to redshirt him last year, because I thought he was one of our best players,” Dutcher said. “He’s a dynamic offensive player. He gets to the rim at will, he can drive the ball, he shoots it at a high level. I’m excited to get him out there with all our new pieces and see how it kind of fits.”
Key additions
The biggest addition to the team, literally, is Jeremiah “Bear” Cherry, a 6-foot-10, 270 lb., fifth-year senior who averaged 15.5 points and 8.2 rebounds as a center for Sacramento State last season.
Cherry, a San Diego native, started six games for the Hornets to start the 2025-26 season before missing the rest of the year due to a leg injury. The season before, he played for UNLV, averaging about 10 points and five rebounds in 33 games (32 starts).
“My number one concern with Bear is keeping him out of foul trouble,” Dutcher said. “We’re working on that daily; how to defend without fouling.”
Another notable arrival, Chance Gladden, a sophomore transfer who had 14.4 points and 4.5 assists per game for Boston University last year, ranked No. 2 in assists in the Patriot League conference.
“I love Chance,” Dutcher said. “He’s come here and been everything I expected him to be. Plays with great pace, great passion. He can score the ball mid-range; he can shoot the three. I’m really encouraged by Chance, and he’ll have an opportunity to be a starter.”
Then there’s Isaiah Sy, a 6-foot-7 senior guard-forward who played the past two seasons with Oregon State, averaging 10 points, 4.6 rebounds and 1.7 assists last year.
Newcomer Nick Anderson, a fifth-year senior guard, put up 15.5 points and 4.3 rebounds last season at Rice. Anderson would have nicely filled the void in the starting lineup created by Dixon-Waters’ departure, but he tore up a knee during a non-contact drill in May.
After surgery in June, he’s likely to miss most of, if not all, the upcoming season, since the typical recovery time from a torn ACL is 9-12 months.
SDSU also added three international players during the offseason: 6-foot-9 Croatian forward Luka Skoric and two Italians, 6-foot-9 forward Luca Vincini and 6-foot-2 point guard David Torresani.
Outlook
This is the Aztecs’ first season in the Pac-12 conference where, despite what the name implies, only nine schools compete in men’s basketball. Of them, Gonzaga and Utah State are the consensus media picks as the top two teams in the conference in 2026-27, with San Diego State predicted to finish third.
Gonzaga went 31-4 last year, its final season in the West Coast Conference. Utah State was 29-7 before jumping from the Mountain West Conference to the Pac-12 last summer, along with SDSU, Boise State, Colorado State and Fresno State.
The other three teams in the conference are Oregon State, Texas State and Washington State.
The Aztecs’ new era tips off Tuesday with a home game against Cal State Fullerton. SDSU’s first 11 games are against non-conference opponents; the team doesn’t begin Pac-12 play until Jan. 6 at Oregon State. After that, all games are in-conference until the team’s regular season wraps March 6 against Boise State.
Dutcher said he thinks the team will bounce back from its underachieving 2025-26 season.
“I believe we’re going to be really good this year,” he said. “We have to stay injury free; we have to continue to grow as a team, which we generally do at San Diego State, we get better as the season goes on. I think we have a chance to be a very good team in this new era of college basketball.”
