After decades of playing annually against USD, alternating evenly between each other’s home court, San Diego State went in a different direction. Starting in 2021, the Aztecs began a three-year series with a UC San Diego program elevating to Division I.
It was a 2-for-1 in scheduling lingo: two games at Viejas Arena and the third at UCSD’s 4,000-seat LionTree Arena.
“I just thought a 2-for-1 at the time sounded pretty good, you know?” Aztecs coach Brian Dutcher said, only half joking. “The alternative was just to continue playing USD 1-for-1 every year. We played USD (in home-and-home series) longer than I thought we should have, but we did it.
“It was good way to say: There’s another Division I team in town and they’re giving me a 2-for-1. I liked the two, but now we have to go play the one and play another crosstown game. I’ve had enough of them to know what they are.”
And what’s that?
“They’re going to be good in their home gym,” Dutcher said. “Yet, here we go, we’re going to go over there and play them.”
The Aztecs will drive across Interstate 8 and up Interstate 5 on Friday for a 7 p.m. tip before a soldout crowd in LionTree Arena that includes 2,000 geeked-up students and, because it demanded fans buy a three-game package to obtain a ticket for the SDSU game, relatively few Aztecs fans.
They’ve done it before at USD’s Jenny Craig Pavilion. But will they do it again?
The metrics, increasingly such a large part of NCAA Tournament seeding and selection, scream that the Aztecs should go nowhere near LionTree Arena. They are currently No. 18 in the Kenpom metric, and USCD (4-3) is 247th after a 27-point loss at Washington on Tuesday night. Anything less than a double-digit win with dominating offensive and defensive stats almost certainly will drop them into the 20s or perhaps worse.
And history says they won’t be playing a 247 Kenpom team. Computers don’t account for little-brother syndromes and the sudden boost from a couple thousand students at a venue that normally draws a couple hundred, if that.
“From the preparation standpoint, everything is the same as any other game,” UCSD coach Eric Olen said. “But having an opponent like San Diego State coming to our campus, you can feel the buzz, how everybody is excited, the atmosphere. That’s great for us, anytime we can generate that.
“We’re excited for the opportunity.”
The Tritons are in the final season of a four-year transition from Division II to Division I, precluding them from participation in the Big West or NCAA tournaments. Regular-season games like this, then, take on greater significance, and this is the first time in school history they’ve hosted a top-75 Kenpom team. (The previous best was No. 93 UC Irvine.)
Compounding the angst for SDSU fans: Three of the Aztecs’ top eight players missed practice this week. Miles Byrd needed treatment on a recurring hip injury, and Reese Waters and Jay Pal had the flu. Dutcher said all three are “game-time decisions.”
What happens Friday night in LionTree may impact what happens in the future. A close game or, gulp, a loss to No. 247 in Kenpom might once and for all enlighten the Aztecs on the skewed risk-reward ratio of playing in crosstown arenas. Or maybe that has already happened.
Because — and here’s the key point — no one is mandating that they play them.
The way nonconference scheduling works for perennial NCAA Tournament contenders is you try to amass quality wins and, maybe more importantly, avoid “bad” losses. It’s an exercise in maximizing upside while minimizing risk, which is why you don’t see UCLA traveling to UC Irvine’s Bren Events Center every other year.
SDSU finally acknowledged that and in 2021 ended the home-and-home series with USD after 22 consecutive seasons. The Toreros balked at a 2-for-1series, with the two games at Viejas Arena. The Tritons, newly transitioning to Division I, did not.
“This doesn’t happen without ‘Dutch’ being the kind of guy he is,” Olen said. “You don’t see teams of San Diego State’s caliber playing games like this. But I just think it’s great for San Diego basketball in general.”
The series expires after Friday night, and it hasn’t been renewed. The issue is as much about logistics as desire, with talks of a 20-game Mountain West conference schedule that would further shrink SDSU’s available dates in November and December.
There’s also a possibility of a scheduling alliance for basketball with Oregon State and Washington State similar to what is being finalized for football that could add even more games. Division I teams can play up to 31 regular-season games, but suddenly you’re down to a couple open dates when you subtract a nonconference tournament and “guarantee” games (where the visiting team is paid to come to Viejas Arena) to fill out the home schedule for season-ticket holders.
“We’re hopeful this is something that can continue, but we understand all the factors that go into it,” Olen said. “I’m hopeful just because those guys are great people and I think they care about San Diego basketball. But I also understand that they have different things they’re trying to accomplish in scheduling.
“We’ll just see where it goes. It’s just too early to tell at this point.”
SDSU might not be in a position to even schedule a multi-year series given all the uncertainty, which may mean it could only offer UCSD or USD a one-off game at Viejas Arena for a five-figure fee with no return date.
“The way we play, the crowds we draw, the guarantee money we have, it probably makes more sense to buy a game like that,” Dutcher said. “Now, whether they’re interested in that, I don’t know. The home-and-home is definitely a good thing to go away. We’ll see whether the two-for-one is something that might be continuing on or not.”
So this is the last time we’ll see the Aztecs weather the wrath of 2,000 biochem majors in a crosstown arena?
“The one thing I’ve learned about college sports, whether it’s as simple as conference realignment, is never say never,” Dutcher said. “Right now, the series has not been renewed. But never say never.”
