San Diego State and USD will play in men’s basketball Wednesday night for the 22nd consecutive season.

They might not play for a 23rd.

The five-year contract between San Diego’s Division I universities expires after the 8 p.m. game at USD’s Jenny Craig Pavilion (Fox Sports West), and an extension has not been signed. And might not be signed.

“We are evaluating our options,” is how Aztecs coach Brian Dutcher put it.


On the surface, it seems like a no-brainer: Div. I teams separated by 10 miles of Interstate 8 pavement playing an annual game for the de facto “City Championship.”

It’s not that simple. College basketball scheduling is a complicated beast, with multiple layers and nuances, and the game may no longer compute for a program like SDSU as its nonconference schedule continues to shrink along with its margin of error for obtaining an at-large berth into the NCAA Tournament each March.

The latest stress on a teetering bridge is the Mountain West’s seemingly inevitable move from an 18- to 20-game schedule (compared to 16 for USD in the WCC), perhaps as soon as next season. That would leave the Aztecs with nine or 10 nonconference games.

Now subtract four for a November or December tournament, one for the Mountain West-Atlantic 10 Challenge that begins next season at Saint Louis, and one at Grand Canyon as part of a home-and-home series. Suddenly you’re down to three, maybe four, available dates, and Dutcher has said he’d prefer to use them on marquee opponents such as BYU, Gonzaga, the Pac-12 or other power conference schools.


The question: Is there room, or reason, for a nothing-to-gain-everything-to-lose game against a crosstown school that you don’t even consider a rival (and that recently hasn’t sold out)?

“We’re also examining UCSD moving to Div. I next year as another possible opponent in the city, where it’s not just USD on the schedule,” Dutcher said. “It could be both, it could be one, it could be none. We’re trying to put the best schedule together for San Diego State and our chances to build a strong résumé.”

That’s another way of saying, like other mid-major programs vying for a dwindling pool of at-large NCAA berths, he doesn’t want to unnecessarily expose his team to risk during the nonconference season.

Consider: SDSU has lost to the Toreros 16 times since becoming Div. I in men’s basketball, and in 14 of those years it failed to make the NCAA Tournament. Both times it did, it received automatic entries by winning the conference tournament.


The problem is that the game is bigger for the school that hasn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 2008 than the one that has been seven times in the last decade.

A few years ago, former USD head coach Lamont Smith referred to it as “the Super Bowl, in a sense.” On Tuesday, SDSU junior Matt Mitchell said: “No, I wouldn’t say it’s a rivalry. Our rivals are within the Mountain West.”

It becomes exponentially harder for the Aztecs when it’s at 5,100-seat Jenny Craig Pavilion. Take last Tuesday against Fresno State. The announced attendance was 1,145, which seemed about double what was actually there. The “Bull Pit” student section had 31 people in it (we counted).

“We all know what it is,” Dutcher said. “It’s a building that sits empty most of the year other than when the (Gonzaga) Zags and the Aztecs come to town. … We know the environment we play in there is a lot different from the environment Fresno State played in, and we’re both Mountain West schools. We always see their absolute best, which is a good thing but can be challenging at times.”


It’s no mystery, then, why these crosstown matchups have become dinosaurs in college basketball. UCLA hasn’t played a nonconference road game at a Southern California school’s campus arena since 1988, when it lost to a UC Irvine team that would finish 12-17. Gonzaga last played at Eastern Washington, 16 miles away, in 2000 and they haven’t played at all since 2011 despite 60 meetings in the previous 53 years.

It appeared SDSU-USD was headed that way five years ago when their last contract expired. The Aztecs coaches had soured on the merits of the series and privately expressed a preference to put it on hiatus, only for then-Athletic Director Jim Sterk to ask head coach Steve Fisher to consent to a five-year extension — an outdoor game at Petco Park followed by four years alternating at each school’s home venues.

The Aztecs lost 53-48 in the baseball stadium and were snubbed by the NCAA Tournament selection committee despite going 16-2 in the Mountain West, largely because of that loss. Last year, the Toreros won at Viejas Arena for the first time since 2000.

“We love the game,” USD coach Sam Scholl said. “We love playing the game because it’s a real good program and a real good team.”


There were reports that boosters who donate to both schools had pressured Sterk to continue the series, something Padres Executive Chairman Ron Fowler emphatically denied last year.

“I really have never asked anybody to do that,” Fowler told the Union-Tribune before last year’s game. “Yeah, I support both schools — that’s accurate. But I’m not going to ask the schools to do anything. That’s not my relationship with the schools. If they want to play one another, then play one another.”

So he’s OK with SDSU discontinuing the series?

“If one of them doesn’t want to play, that’s their prerogative,” Fowler said. “So the short answer is, yes, I’d be OK with it.”


Current SDSU AD John David Wicker was Sterk’s chief lieutenant when the series was renewed in 2015. He’s making no promises it will be again, saying only that they “continue to have dialogue with our colleagues at USD on future scheduling opportunities.”

Said Dutcher: “I can’t come out and just say we’re done with the series, because it’s been a game that’s been played every year since I’ve been here — 21 years. I can’t come in and just say I don’t want to play it anymore. Will I have a strong say in it? Absolutely. But administratively, we’re going to have to talk about whether it’s best for everybody involved to play it or not play it.

“We have to bring games in here that the fans want to see. If we could get a home-and-home with USC as opposed to USD, I think our fans would say, ‘Play USC.’”



SDSU at USD

Wednesday: 8 p.m. at Jenny Craig Pavilion


On the air: Fox Sports West; 1360-AM, 101.5-FM

Records: SDSU is 3-0, USD is 2-3

Series history: SDSU leads 31-19 and has won five straight at USD. The Toreros won 73-61 last year at Viejas Arena.

Aztecs update: After not playing for a week, this starts a stretch of five games in 10 days – culminating at the Las Vegas Invitational against Creighton and either Iowa or Texas Tech. The Aztecs have won six straight at the JCP, five against USD and a 2009 NIT game against Kansas State that was moved there because Viejas Arena was booked. The only opposing school with a longer win streak there is Gonzaga, which once won eight straight. One key to the game will be how well SDSU shoots the 3-ball. Through three games, it has made 43.7 percent (17th in the nation) while USD is holding opponents to 28.3 percent. Roommates Jordan Schakel and Malachi Flynn are a combined 17 of 28 (60.7 percent) on 3s. This is the fourth straight Aztecs opponent that is missing a big man, and the Aztecs have made the previous three pay – with a plus-14 margin on the boards (14th in the nation). For the second straight week, SDSU is among those receiving votes in both the Associated Press and coaches polls.


Toreros update: They haven’t won two straight in the series since 2001. The Toreros replaced four starters from last season, and a fifth (6-10 Yauhen Massalski) is currently sidelined with a foot injury. But they beat Fresno State 72-66 in overtime last week, led UC Irvine by 18 and played No. 23 Colorado tight until an 18-0 run in the second half. The two biggest problems have been rebounding (minus-4.6 per game) and turnovers (17 per game, 29 at Long Beach State). Redshirt sophomore Joey Calcaterra is the scoring leader at 16.8 points. Youngstown State transfer Braun Hartfield is next (11.4), followed by freshman point guard Marion Humphrey (9.0). James Jean-Marie, a 6-7 forward from Canada, was a teammate of SDSU junior Trey Pulliam at Navarro College in Texas last season. Torrey Pines alum Finn Sullivan returned to the floor after missing four games with back issues. He was an Aztec killer last season with nine points and seven rebounds off the bench, nearly all of it in the second half.

Next up: Long Island, Friday at Viejas Arena (7 p.m., web stream on Mountain West Network)