Back in November, Brian Dutcher wanted to watch film of McNeese to prepare for San Diego State’s early-season game against the Cowboys. McNeese had played only one Division I opponent at that point, so Dutcher popped it into his computer.

He thought he was watching his opponent for a Nov. 17 game at Viejas Arena. What he didn’t realize was he also was watching his opponent four months later in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

McNeese was playing Houston.

That’s who the 11th-seeded Aztecs (22-10) drew in the West Region when the 68-team bracket was unveiled Sunday afternoon. They’ll play the sixth-seeded Cougars (26-7) on Thursday in Wichita, Kan.


Funny how it works: Viejas Arena is also hosting NCAA Tournament games this week, but you can’t play in your home venue. So SDSU ends up in Wichita, and Wichita State ends up in San Diego. (There’s even talk that the NCAA will use the same charter plane, flying the Aztecs to Wichita, then picking up the Shockers and flying back.)

It gets really interesting if the Aztecs somehow upset a tough, talented Houston team ranked No. 21 in both major polls and form holds in the other half of the quadrant. They’d get the No. 3 seed, which is …

Michigan.

Dutcher and Steve Fisher coached there for nearly a decade in the late 1980s and ’90s, winning one NCAA title and twice taking the Fab Five to the championship game. It didn’t end well, with Fisher being fired as head coach shortly before the 1997-98 season despite never being directly implicated in a booster scandal. Dutcher stayed on as an assistant for the rest of that season but left when he realized he wasn’t in the school’s plans, instead joining Fisher to rebuild — well, just build — San Diego State.


They have never played Michigan since.

“That was a long, long time ago,” Dutcher said. “It seems like forever ago. We’ve never played them. I always thought maybe they would put Steve against them at one point in these (NCAA) brackets, but it never happened.”

Dutcher isn’t allowing himself to think about it happening this year.

“Houston’s too good,” he said. “They’ve got my full attention.”


That the Aztecs are even in the NCAA Tournament was crazy talk a month ago, with a 13-10 record, buried in eighth place in a ho-hum league. Winning three games in three days at the Mountain West tournament got them in. Winning nine straight after the return of injured guard Trey Kell got them an 11 seed.

That’s about two seed lines better than you’d expect for a fourth-place team from a mid-major league that hasn’t won an NCAA Tournament game in three years (since SDSU beat St. John’s in 2015).

Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson sits on the selection committee, and not long after the Aztecs beat New Mexico in the conference tournament final Saturday he was on the phone soliciting information about Kell’s assortment of injuries and how many games he missed (and how they fared in them).

An 11 seed is usually awarded to the final at-large invitees, meaning SDSU’s resume with a healthy Kell ranks alongside the last few teams that got in.


“That we had beaten three nationally-ranked teams, two in the last week against Nevada, and have a nine-game win streak, I think that got their attention,” Dutcher said. “That resonated, and us being healthy resonated. They gave us a lot of respect by moving us to an 11.

“I also think there’s a lot of respect for what San Diego State has done over the years. They won’t say that, but they know San Diego State was a fixture in the tournament for six straight years. They know we run a good program here and have good talent.”

The selection committee released a list of the entire field ranked first to 68th. SDSU is 45th but eighth among the 31 teams that don’t belong to one of college basketball’s six recognized “power” conferences.

There’s another side to it: Keeping them at a 12 or 13 wasn’t fair to the 4 or 5 seed that drew them. Who wants to play a team on a nine-game win streak with a pair of wins against No. 22 Nevada, including one in which it led by 34 in the first half?


“We’re the most confident we’ve been all year, we’re as locked in we’ve been all year,” Kell said. “We’re finally all healthy. I mean, we’re rolling right now. I don’t think you want to play a team as hot as we are right now.”

That got them out of games against 5 seeds Kentucky, Ohio State, Clemson or West Virginia — all from power conferences.

That didn’t get them out of a tough game. Houston has an RPI of 18 and Kenpom.com rating of 17, better than several teams on the 4 and 5 seed lines. (SDSU is 62 and 50.)

The coach is Kelvin Sampson, who twice ran afoul of the NCAA Committee on Infractions and ultimately was slapped with a five-year “show cause” order that essentially condemned him to working as an NBA assistant coach with Milwaukee Bucks and Houston Rockets. He is in his fourth season at the University of Houston, reaching the NIT the last two years and now the NCAA Tournament with what USA Today identified as one of its five “sleeper teams” poised for a deep run.


The Cougars finished tied for second in the AAC and have a pair of wins against No. 11-ranked Wichita State, including the semifinals of the conference tournament in Orlando, Fla. They lost to No. 8 Cincinnati 56-55 in Sunday’s final when a play for a last-second shot went awry and resulted in a pass out of bounds.

They have the advantage of having played in Wichita this season, although it was an 81-63 loss in a different arena. They don’t have the advantage in rest or travel, battling through a tough game Sunday afternoon in Orlando, then flying back to Houston, then to Wichita on Tuesday.

“There’s no easy route this time of year,” Dutcher said. “But if you’re playing well, you have a chance.”


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mark.zeigler@sduniontribune.com