Aztecs return to Viejas Arena to host Air Force for a Mountain West matchup

San Diego State head coach Brian Dutcher has accomplished a lot over his tenure leading the Aztecs. This past weekend, he coached his team to a win in Boise for just the second time in eight seasons. He now owns a 2-5 record against the Broncos at ExtraMile Arena.

The Aztecs defeated the Broncos 76-68 to improve to 9-3 on the season and 2-1 in Mountain West play. They are tied with Colorado State for 5th in the conference.

“We knew this was going to be a tough environment,” Dutcher said postgame. “When you lose your conference home opener against Utah State, you feel like you’re chasing already, and so we chased the road win down. That puts it in better context. Had we beat Utah State, we’d have come in here and been like, ‘Okay, 2-0. If we lose this, we can make up for it at our place.’ But to get the win to make up for that home loss already was big for us. Now, we have to get ready, and we’ve had so much practice with the bye week and break and exams where I think it’ll feel good to start playing some games more regularly.”

Aztecs star and player of the game, Miles Byrd, shared his thoughts on the team’s mentality after the victory.

“One of our biggest keys was that we wanted to come out here and show that we can bounce back from, I wouldn’t say a poor performance,” Byrd said postgame. “We played well in that game. But we didn’t come out with the win, and it was at home. You know how it is in the Mountain West: you have to win your home games, and you’ve got to reach out to steal a few road games. I’m happy with how we came out here. We were resilient. We battled through some of their runs. At one point, when the game was 58-58, the crowd was standing up. It was super loud in here. We called a timeout. We were just like, ‘Calm down, we got it.'”

SDSU earned a much-needed road victory which is hard to come by in this conference.

After the win, the Aztecs jumped 13 spots to 35 in NET rankings. SDSU is now 2-3 in Quad 1 games and remains undefeated in Quad 2, 3, and 4 games. The Aztecs’ WAB (Wins Above Bubble) is 25, which is very good, just behind UConn and Nebraska and one ahead of Gonzaga, who is 6th in NET.

Taj DeGourville was recently named Mountain West Freshman of the Week after his performance against Boise State. He scored 13 points, grabbed six rebounds, with one steal and one assist in just under 21 minutes.

The Aztecs now look forward to hosting Air Force, who is just 4-32 all-time on the road in San Diego. The contest can be seen on FS1 on Wednesday at 7:30 pm.

Getting to Know the Opponent: Air Force Falcons

The Falcons are struggling once again this season. It is difficult for the academy to recruit elite-level talent with the real responsibilities they have beyond basketball. In this new era of college sports, in conjunction with the transfer portal, it may also be tough to maintain players who perform well.

The Falcons lost their top player from last year, Rytis Petraitis, as he transferred to Cal Berkeley. He averaged 15.7 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 3.7 assists per game last season. Petraitis recently scored five points and grabbed five rebounds in the 71-50 loss to San Diego State on Dec. 21.

Air Force is 3-11 and 0-3 in the Mountain West. As mentioned in East Village Time’s 2024-25 Mountain West Roster’s Breakdown, Air Force was likely going to struggle in conference games yet again.

Air Force has lost nine straight games to the Aztecs, and that streak likely won’t end this season. These two programs are heading in different directions as conference play is in full swing.

The Falcons dropped their first game of the 2025 calendar year, 70-65, at home to Wyoming. They led 36-33 at the hal,f but Wyoming had the 37-29 advantage in the second half to pull away for the win. Wesley Celichowski led the Falcons with 19 points on 8-10 shooting.

Air Force is now losers of four straight as their last win was against Stony Brook on Dec. 7.

The Falcons average 65.1 points per game and allow 70.0. They score at a rate of 46.9% as a team, average 29.1 rebounds, 14.1 assists, 2.9 blocks, and 5.9 steals per contest.

Player to Watch: Ethan Taylor

Ethan Taylor leads the team in just about everything by averaging 14.4 points, 6.2 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.7 steals, all in 36.8 minutes per game. He sits fewer than four minutes each game, so expect to see him on the court all night long against the Aztecs.

In the loss to the Cowboys, Taylor finished with just ten points but grabbed seven boards and dished out eight assists. He even stole the ball three times. His efforts were not the reason why the Falcons lost the game at home.

Taylor only shoots 43% from the floor, so containing him won’t be a tough task for the Aztecs. With how aggressive SDSU defends, the only way Taylor can beat them is by making difficult shots at a consistent rate. He doesn’t have the necessary help to rely on others to handle the scoring.

Celichowski is the only other Falcon to average double digits in scoring at 10.6 per game. The 7-footer shoots 55.3% from the floor and will be really the only other player SDSU should worry about.

Chris Spiering

Chris is a graduate of the University of San Diego. He is the former Sports Editor for the USDVista newspaper. Chris has covered the San Diego Loyal, and now covers San Diego State Men’s Basketball. He also contributes regularly about the Padres. Chris is an athlete and is a huge fan of San Diego sports.