San Diego State basketball reached the sport's mountaintop in 2023. The Aztecs — a fifth seed — stormed through March to the national championship game, with Lamont Butler's buzzer-beater against Florida Atlantic in the Final Four standing as one of the great shots in tournament history. The title game loss to UConn couldn't dim it: SDSU had arrived as a national program.
The foundation was laid by Steve Fisher, who built the Aztecs from nothing into a Mountain West power, and perfected by Brian Dutcher, his longtime lieutenant. The 2011 team — Kawhi Leonard's Sweet 16 squad — announced SDSU to the nation. The 2014 team reached the Sweet 16 again. The 2020 team went 26-0 in the regular season before the pandemic canceled the tournament, robbing the Aztecs of a potential No. 1 seed.
Viejas Arena — 'The Show' — is one of the great home courts in America: 12,000 strong, deafening, and full of the most passionate student section in the West. The Show's antics are legendary, and visiting teams have called it the toughest road environment west of the Rockies.
SDSU's identity is defense: the Aztecs win with toughness, length, and a system that's produced two decades of contention. In the Mountain West's wars, San Diego State has been the standard.
What defines the Aztecs is the 2023 run and The Show. A national final, a buzzer-beater for the ages, and a program built from scratch into a power. In San Diego, the Aztecs don't just play basketball — they put on a show.
Steve Fisher's 1999-2017 build was the foundation: from nothing to national power — the 2011 Kawhi Leonard Sweet 16, the 2014 Sweet 16, and a program that became the Mountain West's standard. His Aztecs defended like their lives depended on it.
Brian Dutcher's 2017-present run brought the peak: the 2020 26-0 regular season — robbed by the pandemic — and the 2023 national final. His teams play beautiful, brutal basketball.
Lamont Butler's 2023 Final Four buzzer-beater deserves its own monument: the pull-up jumper at the horn — 72-71 over Florida Atlantic — the most famous shot in program history. The title-game loss couldn't dim it.
Viejas Arena's 'The Show' is the program's soul: 12,000 strong, the nation's most passionate student section. In San Diego, the Aztecs don't just play basketball — they put on a show.
The 2026–27 season arrives as a full reset — and a new beginning in more ways than one. San Diego State plays its first campaign in the reimagined Pac-12, having left the Mountain West to help rebuild the Conference of Champions alongside Gonzaga, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Utah State, Oregon State, Washington State and Texas State. The timing could not be more dramatic: the Aztecs are coming off what Sports Illustrated called the most disappointing season in program history, a 2025–26 campaign that fell far short of the standard Dutcher’s teams have set for two decades.
Brian Dutcher opens his ninth season on the Mesa with the kind of roster overhaul that defines modern college basketball. His staff — Dave Velasquez, JayDee Luster and Ryan Badrtalei — has rebuilt the Aztecs around a European-flavored core and proven transfer talent, and the program that reached a national final three years ago is betting the system still travels.
The backcourt starts with two transfer guards: Nick Anderson, a fifth-year senior arriving from Rice, and Chance Gladden, a Boston University transfer from Raleigh, North Carolina, who projects as the table-setter. Behind them is Latrell Davis, the redshirt junior from Leeds, England, who sat out last season after averaging 11.1 points per game for San Jose State in 2024–25 while shooting 38.3 percent from three — a shooter with system knowledge and something to prove.
Up front, the Aztecs lean on experience and size: graduate big man ‘Bear’ Cherry (Sacramento State), sophomore Tae Simmons and 7-foot-1 redshirt sophomore Thokbor Majak, the South Sudanese center. Then there’s the European trio that has fans curious — 6-foot-9 Italian forward Luca Vincini, 22 years old with six professional seasons and 193 games under his belt in Italy’s top league; 6-foot-9 Croatian forward Luka Skorić, who averaged 6.1 points and 3.0 rebounds for Cibona Zagreb; and 6-foot-2 Italian guard David Torresani, who averaged 7.0 points per game for Treviso. If the international newcomers adjust quickly, the ceiling rises fast.
The pipeline is already restocking: 2027 Windward guard Davey Harris committed in September 2026. And whatever the record says, The Show will be there — 12,414 strong at Viejas Arena, the toughest road environment in the new Pac-12, demanding that this rebuild become a resurgence.
The nonconference slate is the proving ground: the Aztecs have always scheduled up, and the Pac-12 move only raises the stakes — games against Gonzaga, Washington State and Oregon State now count as league wars. Dutcher’s ninth team will be judged on the glass and the three-point line, the two places international-heavy rosters either sink or swim. The 2023 Final Four banner still hangs over everything in San Diego. This season is about proving the standard survived the rebuild.