FORT COLLINS, Colo. — Coach Brian Dutcher and his staff can pause and rewind film of their opponents, searching for little advantages they can exploit. They can add sets to the offensive playbook. They can use their midweek bye in the schedule to clean up fundamentals on defense. They can spend practice time on rebounding drills.
More than anything, though, what may save this San Diego State basketball team, what may halt its slide over the past few weeks from an NCAA Tournament lock to the bubble as it embarks on a two-game Mountain West road trip starting Saturday night at third-place Colorado State (7 p.m. PST, CBS Sports Network), might be as simple the calendar flipping a page.
January became February.
The month has taken on a sacred aura for this program, like flowers sensing spring and blooming, like birds or whales or migrating herds just knowing when it’s time to return north.
“It’s kind of the turning point in a lot of teams’ seasons, whether it’s a positive turning point or a negative turning point,” Miles Byrd, in his third year in the program, said before practice Thursday. “This has been the positive turning point for a lot of our teams in the past. We’re looking to keep the same tradition.”
Added captain Nick Boyd: “You talk about February. That’s getting ready for March. It’s time to put all your eggs in one basket, really focus and buy into what the team is doing.”
A lot of eggs have hatched in February for the Aztecs. In Dutcher’s seven-plus seasons, they are 44-10, or an .815 winning percentage, in the month. They are .691 in conference games under Dutcher before and after.
Over the past five-plus seasons, SDSU is 31-6 in February (.838). The next best Mountain West team is Boise State at .703, followed by Nevada (.667), Colorado State (.629), Utah State (.605) and UNLV (.575). New Mexico is 14-22 in February since 2020-21.
“Sometimes I speak it into existence,” said Dutcher, whose 63-61 win against Wyoming last Saturday was the first of seven games in February 2025. “Coach (Steve) Fisher did the same thing: Tell them we get better as the season goes on, and we got better as the season went on. But unless you work, my words are going to be hollow. You have to put the work in and believe we’re getting better.
“That’s the message we’ve always delivered, and now that’s the challenge for this team: To put the work in and make it happen.”
Finding statistical proof is the easy part. The more difficult task is identifying why.
Dutcher has had good players and good teams, including one that went 30-2 before the season was canceled due to COVID-19, another that won 32 games and reached the national championship game, another that reached the Sweet 16 before bowing out against eventual champion UConn.
But those teams all won at a higher rate in February than other months. In Dutcher’s first season, in 2017-18, the Aztecs were 13-10 overall, 5-7 in conference and headed nowhere on Feb. 10 … then ripped off nine straight wins to reach the NCAA Tournament.
Another theory is that, while all teams strive to improve as the season progresses, SDSU’s schemes are based on sophisticated reads more than structured rules — taking time to master.
“This is around that time,” sophomore guard BJ Davis said. “You can just tell. Things become more natural, everything is just flowing, the plays, everybody has the same understanding.”
Another: Dutcher is a big proponent of “saving legs” with off days and shorter practices in hopes of having a fresher team as the season grinds into its fourth and fifth months. To that end, with a Wednesday bye this week, he gave his players consecutive off days — no practice, no film, no weights, no meetings — and considered giving them a third.
Another: Dutcher has adopted Fisher’s personality of staying even-keeled through the season’s inevitable ups and downs, not wanting to pulverize his players mentally by overreacting to losses or poor performances.
Another: February lands in the back half of the conference season, when there’s plenty of film available and game plans by his veteran staff take on larger importance.
Whatever it is, the numbers speak for themselves. You can look at the wins. You can also look at the losses.
The last five February losses were all on the road and all one-possession games that could have gone the other way. There was a 70-66 overtime loss at Nevada last season when the Aztecs couldn’t secure an offensive rebound that would have killed the game in regulation. In 2022, there were a pair of 58-57 losses after controversial calls (or non-calls) in the final seconds.
Past teams were trending statistically toward a fortuitous February. This one is not.
Since beating Colorado State 75-60 at Viejas Arena on Jan. 14, the Aztecs have played five times. One was a convincing performance: 69-50 on the road against a fading Nevada team. The other four were not: a rare Quad 3 home loss against UNLV, a buzzer-beating win at 3-20 Air Force, a three-point home win against San Jose State after trailing by 21 and a two-point home win against Wyoming after trailing by nine inside seven minutes to go.
Magoon Gwath and Miles Heide have made steps forward in the last few weeks. The rest of the roster has, almost to a man, seen notable dips in shooting percentages, particularly behind the 3-point arc. In conference games, the Aztecs are dead last in the Mountain West at 30.2%.
Even more alarming: Since concluding their nonconference schedule on Dec. 21, they rank 230th nationally in offensive efficiency and 291st in effective field-goal percentage.
Their computer metrics have slid accordingly, to where most bracketologists currently project SDSU as among the final recipients of an NCAA at-large invitation. Slide any further, and they’ll need to win the conference tournament to claim an automatic berth.
“The only thing I’m responsible for is my team’s performance,” Dutcher said after the close call against Wyoming “and if we’re playing good basketball and winning games, then I love it. … Play good basketball, find ways to win games, and the rest will take care of itself.”
