After last night's loss against Troy, Here is the scouting report for SDSU vs. Mighigan.

SDSU will likely treat Aday Mara similar to how the did Ryan Kalkbrenner by fronting him in the post.

Wake Forest trying to execute a Gortat screen against Aday Mara.

Yaxel Lendeborg’s versatility makes him one of the best players in college basketball.

Turnovers for easy points will be crucial against Michigan.

Michigan’s drop coverage attempts to force shots like this.

Michigan got three shots in one possession in this clip. Aztecs will have to limit that to have a chance to win.

TCU gets a turnover and a score against Michigan using a hedge defense.

After losing to CSUN 2 days ago, KenPom gave Troy a 7% chance of beating the Aztecs. That’s why you play the games though. Shame to waste such a great return performance by Magoon on a loss like this.

Log in to watch the end of the game… What in the world is going on?

Can’t say I’m surprised that Kentucky’s defense got worse after Lamont Butler left…

I know Boise lost to a D2 team, but I fully expect them to come in focused beat Utah Valley today.

Boise State drops its opener against D2 Hawaii Pacific. The good news, it won’t hurt their ratings. The bad news, they looked very un-Bronco like. Poor defense, poor rebounding.

What in the world is going on with Boise?

Assuming he’s healthy by then, Goon is gonna have his hands full with this Koa Peat kid.

Lol. Fans will definitely say #17 happens.

Box score stats for SDSU through 2 exhibiton games. Reese and Taj have been great. BJ Davis with the highest +/-.

The projections showing the Aztecs some love (although I stand by my assertion that B.J. Davis isn't a PG.) Not surprising that the Aztecs should be good at blocking shots again this season.

Zeigler recently wrote about 4 high school prospects the Aztecs were recruiting. 3 of them have since committed elsewhere. 6’4 PG Josiah Johnson (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️) is the last remaining undeclared target that could be paired with wing Zach White (⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️).

Just a quick project to see how PIPM correlates with winning. SDSU's 2020 season can be seen towards the top right corner.

Now pod, if you’re into that sort of thing: Spotify: spotify.link/bC5hHiVdJXb iTunes: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

On average in the Dutcher era, SDSU teams have finished 10 spots better than their Kenpom preseason projection. They are currently at 30, so it's not crazy to think this team could finish at 20.

BJ had 2 assists and 6 turnovers in that game, and was at best the 3rd PG behind Taj all season long.

For fun I wanted to compare the amount of AP All American players the basketball programs of the new MW an dPac-12 have had since 2010. Here are the results:

The ncaa committee saying expansion isn’t about money is laughable, but if Reuters is correct here, it’s also about squeezing out low major teams to fit more power programs.

PIPM for incoming Mountain West Basketball players:

Good news: @evanmiya.bsky.social BPR system projects the Aztecs to have 7 of the top 25 players in the conference. No other team has more than 5 (Boise). The Bad: Having Magoon Gwath down at 20 is criminal. He'll start off a little slow, but be an all conference performer by the end of the season.

Magoon Gwath averaged 1.143 points per possession in post up situations last season. The average was 0.91. In his small sample he was elite down low, especially toward the end of the season. If he adds passing ability like on this clip, he can be a complete weapon down low.

I've tracked how transfers' PIPM changes when they come to SDSU, and how much players improve from year to year while at SDSU. If those averages hold, the projected sum PIPM for SDSU next year is 25.08 (not counting Majak, Simmons, or Harrington.)

Past season at SDSU by sum PIPM of players: 2025- 17.85 2024- 17.36 2023- 25.93 2022- 16.52 2021- 21.59 2020- 20.83 2019- 2.03 2018- 16.80 I'm expecting both Byrd and Gwath to be 5+ PIPM players this season, and I think it's reasonable to expect at least three other players to hit the 3+ mark.

I’m not watching the game, but it’s crazy to see accounts that called for exciting offense and more passing before, now calling for running the ball and winning with defense…

So very lame

Feel like Newman, Waters, Byrd, and Gwath are locks to start. So who gets the 5th spot? Seems like it’s either Heide or BJ. My money would be on Heide, but BJ could make for some real exciting offensive lineups.

I have long desired either a public inter squad scrimmage or having the current team play a team of players who graduated. Charge a little money for it. Put it to charity or NIL or something. It would do great.

Reese is probably the answer here, given we’ve seen the difference between his floor and his ceiling and are unsure how much of that was due to injury. Sean Newman could be an interesting answer though, given his high passing ability but limitations as a scorer.

Today should be the day we find out the fate of the NCAA Tournament.

This is great. Good cbb coverage is hard to find and hopefully this helps fill the void.

I do find it funny that GCU joining this year likely undoes all the “competitive balance” arguments people had for the 20 game schedule. But otherwise, they’re a solid program that should help the conference overall.

Life got busy, but here is the long delayed scouting report on Latrell Davis.

I imagine (but haven’t done the research to confirm), that enrollment numbers are one of the better indicators of long term potential as a sports brand.

This changed a lot last season, but I expect will be smoother this time through. Michigan and Oregon in the Players Era tournament.

What are the odds that two of the 3 MBB games on CBS are SDSU vs Gonzaga? It’s basically a lock that at least one of the 3 is that matchup every year, right?

Nice to see some movement on this finally.

With the retention of Byrd set, the Aztecs roster is complete. Their moves in the portal aren't the sexiest in the conference, but the goal was always retention anyway. Here is how each team did according to next season's projected BPR.

I’m usually one to temper my expectations, but this year (as everyone else already knows) is going to be good. How good still depends on development, like every year. But with a core of (hopefully healthy) Waters, Byrd, and Goon, plus a great assist man and other great role players, oooh Nelly.

Let’s go!!!

Changing my expectation today from getting good news, to getting great news.

This is based on nothing, but I don’t think it goes down to the wire with Byrd. I’d guess he knows today, and makes the announcement tomorrow.

Love this.

A few weeks ago I was pretty confident that Byrd would return. Not 100%, but leaning that way. Now, that confidence has flipped. Seems more likely than not that he’s gone.