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San Diego State released its nonconference men’s basketball schedule on Monday morning, with three exhibition and 14 regular-season games spanning from early November to late December.
Most of it had leaked out already: Cal State Fullerton, New Mexico State, UNLV, Montana State, LIU, Colorado at Pechanga Arena, BYU in Palm Desert, three games at the Players Festival in Las Vegas.
It has become something of a Holy Grail for Aztecs fans, a home-and-home series against the 11-time NCAA champions that includes a date at famed Pauley Pavilion and one at Viejas Arena.
For decades, UCLA had refused to do it, especially as the Aztecs rose from irrelevance in men’s basketball to playing for the national championship in 2023. The closest they came was a neutral-court affair in 2012 at Anaheim’s Honda Center.
The Aztecs won 78-69 before a mostly red-and-black crowd of 17,204 to end a 75-year drought against the Bruins, and you figured that was that.
But SDSU coach Brian Dutcher and UCLA counterpart Mick Cronin are good friends and have played regularly, albeit in closed-door scrimmages or during the pandemic with no spectators or last year in a preseason exhibition at Viejas Arena that didn’t count.
This takes it to the next level – a regular-season series at Pauley Pavilion on Dec. 29 (tip to be determined) and at Viejas Arena the following December.
The last time the Aztecs played at Pauley: 1990, a 94-74 loss. The last time the Aztecs beat the Bruins in Los Angeles: never.
(They’re 0-10.) It adds a sixth marquee game to a nonconference schedule that already included Colorado in the Bill Walton Classic at Pechanga Arena on Nov.
7; the Players 16 Festival over Thanksgiving week that opens with Iowa State, followed by Maryland or Tennessee, followed by another power conference opponent; and BYU at Acrisure Arena in Palm Desert on Dec. 19.
The Pac-12’s 16-game conference schedule has not been released yet, but that will include a pair of games against Gonzaga. There are also exhibitions at Arizona on Oct.
16 and at home against USC on Oct. 23.
Other than the UCLA game, the only parts of the nonconference schedule that weren’t known previously are a home exhibition against Long Beach State; a Nov. 11 home game against Bethune-Cookman; a Nov.
18 home game against Texas Southern; a Dec. 31 home game against NAIA Life Pacific; and the Nov.
18 New Mexico State “home” game be ing played at 6,000-seat Frontwave Arena in Oceanside instead of 12,414-seat Viejas. One, it allows the Aztecs better access to North County fans.
Two, an outside promoter will operate what is called the “Compete 4 Cause Classic,” meaning it would pay most or all of a five- or six-figure guarantee to the opponent without a return date in its building.
When SDSU moved from the Mountain West to the Pac-12, its conference schedule went from 20 to 16 games, forcing it to schedule four more in the nonconference.
With a limited budget to “buy” teams to come to Viejas Arena, that gives the Aztecs more scheduling flexibility without having to enter into home-and-home series with less appealing opponents (and risk a metric-crushing loss).
It is expected to become an annual event, with the potential to attract opponents that are willing to play the Aztecs but don’t want to do it in the snake pit of Viejas. In all, they’ll play at Viejas Arena 17 times (one more than usual), including the two exhibitions.
The Pac-12 schedule starting in early January is expected to be announced in the coming weeks.
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