Around the Mountain: SDSU's Brian Dutcher reached this league milestone quicker than any other coach

It wasn’t as pretty as San Diego State may have wanted it (what game has been of late for SDSU?) but the Aztecs’ 63-61 win over Wyoming at home on Saturday was Mountain West win No. 100 for coach Brian Dutcher.

He is the fourth MW coach to reach the milestone, and got there faster than any of the three men who did it before him.

Dutcher’s 100th win came in his 135th league game. Steve Alford, with wins at both UNM and Nevada, got there in 149 games; Boise State’s Leon Rice in 170; and former SDSU coach Steve Fisher in 187 games.

Fisher has the most MW wins, 168, and Dutcher was the Aztecs’ top assistant for each of those games.

Most Mountain West coaching wins:

1. Steve Fisher, SDSU — 168

2. *Leon Rice, Boise State — 161

3. *Steve Alford, UNM/Nevada — 125

4. *Brian Dutcher, SDSU — 100

5. Dave Rose, BYU — 78

6. Lon Kruger, UNLV — 72

7. *Niko Medved, Colorado State — 70

8. Steve McClain, Wyoming — 60

9. Rodney Terry, Fresno State — 59

10. Larry Eustachy, Colorado State — 55

*= active

Dutcher is also among the all-time leaders in win percentage in MW games. Utah State’s Jerrod Calhoun, thanks in part to a small sample size, is actually the leader in that category and the Aggies’ recent run of short-timer coaches winning and then moving on fills the list.

Best win percentage in Mountain West games:

1. *Jerrod Calhoun, Utah State — .818 (9-2)

2. Dave Rose, BYU — .813 (78-18)

3. Danny Sprinkle, Utah State — .778 (14-4)

4. Craig Smith, Utah State — .764 (42-13)

5. *Brian Dutcher, SDSU — .741 (100-35)

6. Rick Majerus, Utah — .723 (34-13)

7. Eric Musselman, Nevada — .722 (39-15)

t8. Bill Bayno, UNLV — .714 (10-4)

t8. Dick Hunsaker, Utah — .714 (10-4)

10.Jeff Bzdelik, Air Force — .688 (22-10)

*= active

Players of the week

Monday was for the big men in the Mountain West.

UNM’s 6-foot-10 Nelly Junior Joseph was named Player of the Week, his third of the season, after his 15-point, 13-rebound double-double at Utah State on Saturday while shooting a perfect 7-of-7 from the floor.

San Diego State’s 7-foot redshirt freshman Magoon Gwath won his second-consecutive Freshman of the Week honor after averaging 19 points, 9 rebounds and 2.5 blocks in wins last week over San Jose State and Wyoming.

A league of 3s?

While league-leading New Mexico is the outlier, hardly shooting any 3s per game this season, the conference as a whole is in bombs-away mode.

The league has a 40.4% 3-point attempt rate (3-point attempts/field goal attempts). That ranks No. 7 out of 31 conferences.

Take UNM, and its 31.5% rate, out of that mix (UNM on the season ranks 334th out of 364 teams in the stat), then 41.5% of all shots in Mountain West games would be coming from outside the arc, which would be third highest in the country.

The MW led the country in 3A% twice (2012 and 2020). This would be just the fourth time in the 26-year history of the MW that more than 40% of its shots came from beyond the arc.

As for making them? The MW is 12th at 34.7% and just in the past 12 days has had the four highest 3-pointers made games of the season: 17 by Wyoming in a win at Fresno State, 16 in each of Utah State’s recent wins over Air Force and Nevada, and 15 by San Jose State in a loss last week to San Diego State.

Poll position

No Mountain West team was ranked in Monday’s new Associated Press Top 25 poll. Both UNM and Utah state were in the “others receiving votes” section, though neither was particularly close to cracking the rankings as No. 25 Ole Miss garnered 184 points

NEW MEXICO: The Lobos received 23 points and are seven spots out of the rankings. They appeared on 10 of 62 voter ballots with a high vote of No. 21 by Dave Borges of the New Haven (Connecticut) Register.

UTAH STATE: The Aggies received eight points via appearing on three of 62 ballots with a high vote of 22 by Zach Klein of WSB television in Atlanta.

Klein (22) and Luca Evans of the Orange County Register in Irvine, California, each have Utah State on their ballots this week, but not the Lobos, who beat Utah State by 19 points in Logan on Saturday night — the worst home loss for Utah State since November 1996 when they lost 60-41 to Utah.

Three for me

Here are the three games I’m most looking forward to this week around the Mountain West (listed chronologically):

Boise State (7-4) at UNLV (5-6): Tuesday, 9 p.m. MST (CBS Sports Network) — Boise State is hopeful that with some help it can get back into a title race, but have yet to win a conference game over a team with a winning league record. UNLV, meanwhile, has followed beating Utah State and SDSU on Jan. 15 and 18 with four consecutive losses, but had chances to win in the final minutes of all four. The Rebels are hoping to avoid their first in-season five-game skid since the Marvin Menzies-coached 2018 team.

Colorado State (8-2) at New Mexico (10-1): Wednesday, 8:30 p.m. MST (FS1) — Since the Lobos beat CSU in Moby Arena on Dec. 28, the Rams are 7-1, with four of their wins being by more than 20 points and the average margin of victory in the wins being 16.6 points. UNM looks to answer beating one-loss Utah State by knocking off the next team in the standings.

San Diego State (8-3) at Colorado State (8-2): Saturday, 8 p.m. MST (CBS Sports Network) — The teams enter the week tied in the win column. Since SDSU beat the Rams by 15 in Viejas Arena on Jan. 14, the Aztecs are 4-1 with a home loss to UNLV and one-possession wins over Air Force, San Jose State and Wyoming.