SDSU TENTATIVELY SET TO PLAY SAINT MARY’S IN PHOENIX

Give Randy Bennett this much: He’s not backing down.

Either that, or the Saint Mary’s basketball coach is a glutton for punishment. His Gaels have played San Diego State in neutral court games the past two seasons, and lost by double figures both times.

But he has agreed to play the Aztecs again, according to several sources, with the schools finalizing plans to reprise their neutral court meeting at Phoenix’s Footprint Center from last December. This one is tentatively scheduled for Dec. 10, although SDSU has yet to sign a contract.

It is the latest marquee date on a nonconference schedule filled with them. The Aztecs already are playing BYU, Stanford and three tough games in the Maui Invitational — all before Thanksgiving. This gives them six games against potential NCAA Tournament teams.

It also is the latest indication of what coach Brian Dutcher thinks of his 202223 team, which returns four players who regularly started and adds three highly rated transfers (although Mountain West sixth man of the year Chad Baker-Mazara was dismissed from the team earlier this week for academic issues).

“On paper, we should be very good,” Dutcher said last month after renewing the series with BYU, “and we want to challenge ourselves.”

Saint Mary’s of the West Coast Conference is a perennial NCAA Tournament team under Bennett, but the Gaels have not found the cheat code for the Aztecs.

SDSU led by 20 at the half and won 74-49 in a December 2020 game played at Cal Poly’s Mott Gym — roughly equidistant between the schools — in front of no fans because of COVID restrictions. Last December in Phoenix as part of the Jerry Colangelo Classic, the Aztecs outscored the Gaels by nine over the final six minutes to win 63-53.

In the two meetings, one of the West Coast’s most efficient offenses shot 10 of 42 behind the 3-point arc (23.8 percent) and averaged just 51 points. Bennett declined to speak with the media after both games.

The rest of SDSU’s nonconference schedule will include a home game against UC San Diego, a non-Division I opponent and probably three or four “buy” games against teams from smaller conferences. The Maui bracket is usually revealed in July, and the Mountain West schedule is expected in August or September.