San Diego State played against Cal and guard Jordan Mathews last season, coming back from 15 down early in the second half to win 72-58 at the Las Vegas Invitational despite 10 points and six rebounds from the junior guard.

The Aztecs will play both again this season, just in separate games.

They play Nov. 14 at Gonzaga, where Mathews transferred for his senior year. And a week later, several sources confirmed, they’ll play Cal at the new NBA arena in Sacramento. A formal announcement is expected in the next few days.

Gonzaga will return the game at Viejas Arena the following season. The Nov. 21 date against the Bears begins a three-game series – on a neutral court in 2016, at Viejas in 2017 and at Cal in 2018.


The genesis of the all five games is Kevin Johnson, Sacramento’s mayor since 2008 who played basketball at Cal in the 1980s. He was instrumental in keeping the NBA’s Sacramento Kings with construction of the $534 million Golden 1 Center, nearly half of which was financed by public funds.

The 17,500-seat facility that will replace Sleep Train Arena is scheduled to open in October, and Johnson called his alma mater about playing the first college basketball game there. Cal began searching for a suitable opponent and eventually settled on SDSU.

That relationship morphed into the subsequent home-and-home series … and then two more games against Gonzaga.

Mathews, a 6-foot-4 shooting guard who averaged 13.6 points last season, announced in May that he intended to graduate early from Cal and use his final year of eligibility elsewhere. As a graduate transfer, he can play immediately.


Then he picked Gonzaga, which had Cal coming to the McCarthey Athletic Center on Nov. 14. And an unwritten rule of college sports is you typically don’t play against your former team, if at all possible.

Another unwritten rule: If you pull out of a nonconference game, you’re responsible for finding an agreeable replacement or pay a five- or six-figure cancellation penalty stipulated in the contract.

Through its negotiations with Cal, the SDSU staff had mentioned that it was interested in one more “marquee” nonconference game that didn’t involve cross-country travel. Soon Cal was on the phone, wondering if they’ll like to pinch hit against the Zags.

It gives Steve Fisher’s Aztecs what ranks among the toughest nonconference schedules in school history, and that’s by design. After being snubbed by the NCAA Tournament despite a 16-2 conference record and strong computer metrics, the message was clear: The Mountain West doesn’t carry the cache it once did, meaning the only route to the NCAAs is a nonconference resume loaded with big names.


× Steve Fisher SDSU Presser

So the Aztecs will play at Gonzaga. They’ll play Cal in Sacramento. They’ll host Arizona State. They’ll play at Grand Canyon, the WAC favorite which beat them in Viejas Arena last year. They’ll play in the Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu with Utah and three other teams that did make the NCAA Tournament last season. They also have secured Gonzaga, Cal and ASU for the 2017-18 schedule.

The Bears team that the Aztecs played last November is not the one they’ll face this November, not in players or psyche. It’s been a rough offseason.

Senior point guard Tyrone Wallace already was leaving. Forward Jaylen Brown declared for the NBA Draft and was taken third pick by the Boston Celtics. Mathews bolted for Gonzaga. (That’s the three leading scorers and 54 percent of their offense.)


Also: Assistant coach Yann Hufnagel was dismissed amid sexual harassment allegations (and later hired by Nevada), and four-star incoming freshman Tyson Jolly, who was recruited by Hufnagel, decommitted and chose Baylor instead. And Sean Rooks, the father of 7-0 Mission Hills High alum Kameron Rooks, died of a heart attack in early June.

Still, the Bears have talent. Ivan Rabb, a 6-10 post who some scouts rated higher than Brown, opted to stay for his sophomore year and will among the nation’s best bigs. Also back is former five-star recruit Jabari Bird, and he’ll be joined in the backcourt by 6-3 Colombia graduate transfer Grant Mullins. In the spring, Coach Cuonzo Martin landed Charlie Moore, a point guard from Chicago who was Mr. Basketball in Illinois.

It will be the fourth time in seven years that SDSU and Cal have played, and in the fourth different venue. The Aztecs won the previous three – at Cal’s Haas Pavilion in 2010, at Viejas Arena in 2011 and in Las Vegas last season.

It will be the first time the Aztecs have played in the state capitol since a 67-61 win at Sacramento State in 1994, and only the second time in 60 years – remarkable considering their recent recruiting imprint there.


SDSU has had five scholarship players as many years from the Sacramento area: former Aztecs Chase Tapley and Xavier Thames plus Dakarai Allen, D’Erryl Williams and Malik Pope from the current roster.