A reveal dropped on Monday, Sept. 8, and with it came San Diego State’s men’s basketball schedule for the 2025 season: a pair of sellout-friendly exhibitions, marquee neutral-site showdowns, six nonconference home dates and a final gauntlet through the Mountain West before the Pac-12 era beckons.
The newly revealed schedule reads ambitious, very much like a Brian Dutcher calendar.
“We’re excited to release this year’s schedule, obviously full of challenges, but we try to make the tournament,” Dutcher said, speaking with the media on Monday. “The goal is to make the NCAA Tournament.”
So, the Aztecs will press the gas early. After exhibitions against UCLA and crosstown USD at Viejas, SDSU opens with Long Beach State, Idaho State and Troy, then heads to Las Vegas for the Players Era Festival, where Michigan and Oregon wait, with a third game to follow. December brings Utah Valley, Lamar and a neutral-site game vs. Arizona in Phoenix, before Whittier closes the nonconference.
“We schedule super hard in November to give us a chance to make the NCAA Tournament in November,” Dutcher said. “If we falter, we have the conference season to make up ground and try to make it in that regard.”
It’s also a schedule shaped by success.
“Everybody wants us to play really good teams at home, but you have to find someone who wants to come here,” Dutcher said. “And the success we’ve had, people don’t want to come to Viejas and play us.”
The last march through the Mountain West
Conference play returns to unbalanced home-and-home pairings with two single meetings, and it will do so for the final time with SDSU as a member.
“Our final time through the Mountain West, last trip to Laramie, last trip to Albuquerque, last trip to Air Force,” Dutcher said. “I don’t think I’m going to miss any of those sites. They’re hard to play at. They’re hard to play at that altitude, but we’ll go through one more time.”
The addition of Grand Canyon to the league doesn’t soften the path.
“It’s exciting to add Grand Canyon to the conference,” Dutcher said. “Obviously, they’ve had a program that’s done really good things, and I think that allows us two more quality games on our schedule, which I think is important. I think with the recruiting they’ve done this year, I think they’ll be picked near the top three or four of the Mountain West, and that will give us two more good opportunities to build a résumé.”
Built for seeding — and for growth
“I want to play as many good teams as we possibly can,” Dutcher said. “I think if we don’t beat Houston last year, there’s an argument we’re one of the last four teams in… The year before that, I think we finished fourth or fifth in the conference and had the highest seed in the conference come NCAA Tournament time because of our nonconference schedule. So you can use it for seeding, you can use it to make the tournament.”
There’s also the practical bit: no true nonconference road game, but plenty of road-feel.
“I think playing Arizona in Phoenix is going to have a road game feel,” he said. “So I’m not that concerned with that.”
On paper, the pieces give SDSU the latitude to chase wins and weather lulls.
“We’re very deep, and I don’t like being this deep because it’s not fair to the players,” Dutcher said. “But… we’ve added some really good pieces, and then when you get [Miles] Byrd and [Magoon] Gwath to come back, now you’re deep and you’re talented… We’re deep, we’re talented and we have a chance to be pretty good.”
There will be stretches — there always are — that test patience and posture.
“Every season has a rhythm and a pace of its own,” Dutcher said. “You want to play good all year, but we know that doesn’t happen. There’s always lulls in the season… I hope we have a lead going down the stretch, but if we don’t, we’ll have to find a way to be tough enough, mentally and physically, to win on the road, to hopefully win another conference championship.”
What matters most
Strip away the dates and the mile markers and you’re left with intent. The exhibitions invite the city in while the neutral sites offer powerhouse school chances. The conference map is a goodbye tour. It is, in other words, a schedule that makes sense for a program trying to live in March.
“Our goal when we schedule is always to schedule to make the NCAA Tournament, to schedule in order to get a high seed,” Dutcher said. “And we’ve challenged ourselves again this year.”
The entire Aztecs 2025-25 season schedule looks like this:
2025-26 San Diego State Men’s Basketball Schedule
(Conference game dates subject to change. Start times still TBD)
Oct. 17 – +UCLA
Oct. 29 – +SAN DIEGO
Nov. 4 – LONG BEACH STATE
Nov. 9 – IDAHO STATE
Nov. 18 – TROY
Nov. 24 – ^vs. Michigan
Nov. 25 – ^vs. Oregon
Nov. 26/27 – ^vs. TBD
Dec. 3 – UTAH VALLEY
Dec. 10 – LAMAR
Dec. 17 – *AIR FORCE
Dec. 20 – #vs. Arizona
Dec. 22 – WHITTIER COLLEGE
Dec. 30 – *at San Jose State
Jan. 3 – *BOISE STATE
Jan. 6 – *at Nevada
Jan. 10 – *FRESNO STATE
Jan. 13 – *at Wyoming
Jan. 17 – *NEW MEXICO
Jan. 20 – *at Grand Canyon
Jan. 24 – *at UNLV
Jan. 27 – *COLORADO STATE
Jan. 31 – *at Utah State
Feb. 3 – *WYOMING
Feb. 7 – *at Air Force
Feb. 14 – *NEVADA
Feb. 17 – *GRAND CANYON
Feb. 21 – *at Colorado State
Feb. 24 – *UTAH STATE
Feb. 28 – *at New Mexico
March 3 – *at Boise State
March 7 – *UNLV
Note: home games are listed in ALL CAPS
+ – exhibition; ^ – Players Era Festival (Las Vegas, Nev.); # – Naismith Hall of Fame Series (Phoenix, Ariz.); * – Mountain West game
