SDSU Tip-Ins: 200 wins for Dutcher, big women’s opener attendance and more

SAN DIEGO – A rare weekend double saw the San Diego State Aztecs women’s basketball team open their home slate with a 95-35 win over Cal State San Marcos on Saturday and the men’s team follow with a 73-57 win against Idaho State on Sunday. Here are some thoughts from both games:

200-Dutch

When asked what immediately came to mind after Brian Dutcher won his 200th career NCAA DI game as a head coach, both Reese Dixon-Waters and Pharaoh Compton said that they appreciated that they both got called out for not being on the court when initially scheduled for warmups.

“He’s always honest, his door’s always open so whenever we want to talk to him we can,” Dixon-Waters said, after acknowledging he was “backed up” on his pregame routine.

One would think it’s an increasingly hard sell to convince players that their minutes will be tied to what they do on the defensive end, or to give up potential shots on offense for the betterment of the team. Year after year, Dutcher has done that.

One of the fun moments from his postgame press conference came when Dutcher was asked about reaching the milestone, with him first deflecting by saying he was ‘glad (his mentor and former head coach Steve) Fisher had retired because he can still coach and he’d have 200 more wins.’

“I learned from him when he was a head coach; you surround yourself with really good people—assistant coaches and players—and everybody embraces a role, including mine, great things can happen for all of us,” Dutcher said.

After acknowledging his wife Jan as one of the ‘really good people’ he's been surrounded by, Dutcher was asked whether he could pass his father in career wins. It ended with laughs as the SDSU coach said with a smile that “he might be safe” if folks counted his dad’s wins at Alpena Community College in Michigan.

His father, James ‘Jim’ Dutcher, earned 312 wins as head coach of Eastern Michigan and Minnesota across 17 seasons. Before Jim got his break at EMU, he coached and was Athletics Director at Alpena Community College, where his accomplishments had him voted into the Lumberjacks Legends Hall of Fame in the inaugural class announced in 2024. There he coached a squad to the 1966 national junior college championship tournament.

Here’s a fun bit about Alpena: over 10,000 live in the city that is in one of the northeastern-most parts of Michigan’s lower peninsula. Its coastline is connected to a national marine sanctuary that protects 116 historically significant shipwrecks in the ‘Thunder Bay’ of Lake Huron. There are many local area kayak, snorkeling and diving outlets that will let you enjoy these unique fresh-water spots.

Big crowd = Big impact

Before the same game where she scored a career-high, sophomore Alyssa Jackson said that she and the Aztecs were "a little bit shocked” and “overwhelmed” by the support from the community when they first walked out onto Steve Fisher Court for the pregame lay-up line at Viejas Arena.

That bit of initial ‘woah’ feeling probably lasted as long as the start of pregame, as the Aztecs got off and running early by scoring the first 6 points of the game on driving layups. Cal State San Marcos pulled within two points at 90 seconds of game time in, then the Aztecs built a double-digit lead at the 3:17 mark of the first quarter which they continued to grow the rest of the way.

“It was a great feeling, we were really happy and I’m looking forward to the rest of the season,” Jackson said.

The attendance of 2,528 at Saturday’s home opener was the largest crowd for a home opener the Aztecs women’s basketball team has drawn since opening the 2018-19 season with a field trip day game against Hawaii.

“Women’s basketball is booming across the country, so I think we’re just trying to catch up a little bit, which is a great thing,” head coach Stacie Terry-Hutson said. “I love that we’re on the radio, we have all this coverage, the girls were on KUSI the other day, so I love that they’re getting their flowers right now.

“But, you’ve got to continue to win and you’ve got to keep putting a product on the floor that people want to see.”

Last season the program set a record during their first field trip day game of the season when a crowd of 6,905 saw the Scarlet and Black blast NCCAA side Bethesda 107-36, as they scored the sixth-most points in a game in program history.

SDSU had more than 1,000 in attendance for all of their Mountain West home games last year, with their conference opener against Boise State the highest-drawing non-field trip day game of the season that topped the 2,500-plus mark. Their second field trip day game against Nevada had 4,088 in attendance.

“I’m hoping all of them come back because it was a fun game to watch,” Terry-Hutson said.

Welcome Back, Waters

Dixon-Waters said he didn’t know exactly how it happened, but after suffering a corneal abrasion and despite having a ‘high pain tolerance,’ he said he had to call an ambulance because he couldn’t close his eye or open it without it hurting.

To twist a phrase from NBA Jam after seeing his first game back: Was it the antibiotics?

Or was it the natural dead-eye that the senior showcased over the course of his NCAA career that he returned to the court with and promptly scored a team-high 15 points on 6-of-8 shooting?

“I had a lot of fun getting back out there, I was really frustrated I missed a free-throw though,” Waters said, having famously made an NCAA season-best 43 consecutive free throws to open 2023-24.

Then he went out and made a difference on the defensive end to start the second half by helping combine on multiple steals with Miles Byrd.

“I think as veteran guards it’s our job to set the tone on defense for the guard position, we spoke in the locker room about what we needed to do coming in… I wanted to dunk that though, to be honest with you, but I feel like it was a lot of fun causing havoc and Byrd’s always gonna do that on the defensive end, so it was fun.”

The non-dunk in question came with just under five minutes remaining, after Dixon-Waters snatched his second steal. Perhaps it’s better that the sharpshooter saved that emotional bullet for later in the season for an additional boost.

Either way, from the massive roar when he was introduced during the starting lineups, or the high-fives slapped around the former Aztec Bowl stands when he earned his first and-one of the season, it was clear the fans on The Mesa were happy to see Dixon-Waters back.

“Reese is probably wondering why we didn’t run five more plays for him, because he was scoring the ball,” Dutcher said.

Yet, the lively banter between the players during the postgame availability seemed revealing. Compton playfully said “trash” after Reese mentioned missing the free-throw, and later wondered what the redshirt senior thought about the late technical foul call, to which both smiled and shook their heads knowingly. 

It’s clear that the calm, steady, level-headed and clear-eyed leadership from Dixon-Waters will have as much impact off the court as his play when the ball goes up this season.

Deep-Deep programs

For men’s basketball fans that have wondered about the potential for San José State-transfer Latrell Davis to redshirt amidst a roster that has seen six guards get regular play through two games, how about Terry-Hutson suggesting that her team could do a ‘hockey line change’?

While the five-for-five swap is wholly impractical, through the first two games SDSU’s women have given ten or more minutes to nine different players, with eleven earning at least 18 minutes in the home opener against the Cougars.

What is Terry-Hutson looking to do by parceling out her minutes across the squad early on?

“We’ve got kids to buy in to maybe adjusting or changing their roles, and it’s gonna be the same way,” Terry-Hutson said.

“We have two really good groups, and we do that in practice, so getting to play together, I love our girls and I love what we’re trying to do as a unit.”

Naomi Panganiban has been the high-minutes player so far, with 57 across the first two contests, and the starting five of Panganiban-Nat Martinez-Nala Williams-Bailey Barnhard-Kennedy Lee has been the same in both games.

However, the trio of CJ Latta, Kaelyn Hamilton and Jackson have each seen more than 30 minutes off the bench across the two games, while forward Maria Konstantinidou has seen nearly 20 minutes.

The duo on the fringes, senior SJSU transfer guard/forward Sofia Kelemeni and freshman Kendall Mosely made the most of their minutes against Cal State San Marcos, with Kelemeni scoring 7 points with four boards and a steal in 11 minutes, her most since going for 15 points on Dec. 29, 2024 as a Spartan. Mosley went for 11 points on 3-of-5 shooting from downtown in 16 minutes, while also being one of four Aztecs with multiple steals.

“We have leadership meetings every week for us to focus on accepting our role…leading from whatever position they are, whether it’s 1-through-14, everybody has an important role that’s needed for us to win,” Terry-Hutson said.

Parting Shot: Rangs, Staceh!

In addition to raising the program’s first banner since 2013, the Aztecs also received their championship rings as part of a pregame ceremony during their home opener. Beyond the returning team members, SDSU was also joined by guard Jazlen Green, former walk-on guard Natalija Grizelj and the father of Kim Villalobos, Enock, who was a regular vocal supporter for much of the forward’s 154 program-record appearances.

Terry-Hutson made it very clear that the goal for this season is to earn another ring. Here’s a look at what the 2025 Mountain West Tournament champions earned, as shared by Jackson after her postgame media availability:

-This series will follow after most SDSU men’s and women’s basketball games. Eric can be reached at at his TST email account: eric(dot)evelhoch(at)thesportingtribune(dot)com