When he first arrived ahead of 1999-00, head coach Steve Fisher was taking over a San Diego State program that finished below .500 in 13 of its previous 14 seasons, including three seasons with eight or fewer wins and two with five or fewer.
Fisher didn’t have any immediate success, either, going 5-23 in his first seasons. That didn’t last long, though, making the NCAA Tournament two seasons later for the first time since 1984-85, winning 21 games. The Aztecs made the tournament once again in 2005-06
and in 2009-10, the first of six-straight seasons in the Big Dance — with a pair of Sweet 16 appearances.
Fisher turned the program into a powerhouse, and current San Diego State head coach Brian Dutcher hasn’t allowed the program to skip a beat. SDSU made the National Championship in 2022-23 and has made the tournament in each of the last five and in six of its last eight seasons.
We know that you could essentially pencil them into being a top-2/3 team in the conference each season. But how does its longstanding success stack up with the rest of the conference?
CBS Sports ranks SDSU as 22nd-best program over last 25 years:
CBS Sports’ Kyle Boone recently ranked the 25-best programs over the last 25 years, and San Diego State made the mark!
“With 579 wins since the 2000 season, SDSU ranks 14th among all college basketball programs and first teams from the current MWC,” Boone wrote. “The Aztecs have been a force in their conference with nine MWC titles but also nationally, as evidenced by a run to the title game in 2023 that ended with a 76-59 loss to UConn.”
There’s no question that, since Fisher’s hire, the program has been one of the nation’s top mid-majors. Since the start of 1999-00, San Diego State has the nation’s 21st-best winning percentage — including seventh among non-majors — with nine Mountain West regular season titles and seven MW Tournament titles.
San Diego State has four Sweet 16 appearances, one Elite Eight and one Final appearance over that span, too. For years, the MW has been the butt of jokes — rightfully deserved — for how it’s played in March. There’s one exception, though.
The conference eventually losing SDSU to a new-look Pac-12 will undoubtedly sting. Unless a new power emerges — with a ridiculous amount of success for *checks notes* three decades — SDSU is essentially irreplaceable.
