Tag: San Diego State Aztecs

San Diego State advances to Super Regionals, first time in program history

Who will the Aztecs play in their first ever Super Regionals game?

The Aztecs put the Liberty Flames out of the tournament with their 6-3 victory on Sunday in the Los Angles regionals. This is the first time in program history San Diego State has made it to Super Regionals. They will take on No. 15 seeded Utah in a best-of-three tournament and the victor will advance to the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City.

“San Diego State went 3-0 in the NCAA’s toughest regional (RPI average of 32.00), outscoring the opposition, 19-3. The Aztecs also improved to 6-0 in the postseason, also winning all three games at the Mountain West Tournament from May 11-13 at SDSU Softball Stadium,” as per the Aztecs’ press release.

The Flames had five consecutive hits to start the game, but the Aztecs hit their stride and outperformed Liberty University 10-2, to walk away with the win. San Diego State players Cali Decker, AJ Murphy and Jeweliana Perez all scored home runs in the game which cemented the Aztecs’ win.

Here is the schedule for the three-game series.

Game 1: Fri., May 26 | 10 p.m. » ESPNU

Game 2: Sat., May 27 | 5 p.m.

Game 3 (if necessary): Sun., May 28

To stay up-to-date on all the games during Super Regionals here.

Former Alabama WR Tyrell Shavers signs with Buffalo Bills as UDFA

Former Alabama wide receiver Tyrell Shavers went undrafted but is signing a three-year deal with the Buffalo Bills.

Former Alabama wide receiver Tyrell Shavers is signing a three-year deal with the Buffalo Bills as an undrafted free agent.

Shavers began his college career at Alabama in 2017. He spent three seasons with the Crimson Tide before transferring to Mississippi State.

At Alabama, Shavers hauled in just one reception for 20 receiving yards. His most memorable moment in an Alabama uniform is when he blocked a punt and recovered it for a touchdown against Texas A&M as a sophomore.

In one season at Mississippi State, he had nine catches for 107 yards and one touchdown.

After the 2020 season, he transferred to San Diego State where he would spend the next two seasons. Shavers had 56 receptions for 856 yards and five touchdowns.

Now, he will begin his professional career in Buffalo. Along with Shavers, former Alabama defensive lineman DJ Dale was also signed as an undrafted free agent by the Bills. It will be interesting to see how the two perform at the professional level.

Roll Tide Wire will continue to follow the Alabama football program and its players competing at the professional level.

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San Diego State transfer OL sets May official visit date with Florida

Florida’s looking to add some more pieces to its offensive line and former San Diego State lineman Josh Simmons might be a name to keep an eye on.

The Gators are looking to add to their offensive line room during the spring transfer portal period, and San Diego State’s [autotag]Josh Simmons[/autotag] is one of the top targets for Florida, according to Swamp247.

Billy Napier’s recruiting staff has been working to get Simmons on campus for a while, and now he’s locked in for an official visit May 5. The spring portal is open from April 15-30, so that means he’ll be in town after it closes. He could still commit and transfer sight unseen, though.

Simmons started all 13 games for San Diego State a year ago and finished the season one snap shy of 800. That’s enough of a sample size for draft experts to consider him a potential prospect, and getting reps in against the SEC would be the best way for him to keep his draft stock on the rise.

Florida added guard [autotag]Micah Mazzccua[/autotag] and tackles [autotag]Damieon George[/autotag] and [autotag]Kiyaunta Goodwin[/autotag] during the winter portal period, but it became apparent during spring practices and the Orange and Blue Game that Napier needed to add another player or two to the trenches.

Simmons fits the bill perfectly. He doesn’t necessarily have to step into a starting role right away, but he has the experience to do so if the team needs him to.

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San Diego State lands USC transfer Reese Dixon-Waters

Reese Dixon-Waters becomes the latest #Pac12 transfer to join the #Aztecs. He will try to do what Matt Bradley did for the program.

Reese Dixon-Waters has transferred out of the Pac-12, but maybe not for long. He did not transfer to another state or even to another part of the state of California.

Dixon-Waters is staying in Southern California, but he is traveling south to San Diego. RDW has chosen the San Diego State Aztecs as his transfer destination after entering the portal.

Last season, Reese Dixon-Waters was USC’s third-leading scorer. The sophomore didn’t shoot brilliantly, but he was the Trojans’ most reliable bench player. He held together the lineup whenever Andy Enfield had to look for other options to steal minutes.

The Pac-12’s Sixth Man of the Year averaged 9.8 points per game for the Trojans last season; he will have two years of eligibility remaining at San Diego State.

The 6-foot-5, 210-pound guard was rated a top 50 recruit coming out of St. Bernard High in San Diego. He skipped his senior season to enroll at USC early during the semester break, playing the back half of the 2020-21 season abbreviated by the pandemic. That qualifies him for an extra year of eligibility, meaning he has two years left. Because he is a first-time transfer, he can play immediately.

Dixon-Waters arrived at USC as a four-star prospect. He was ranked No. 77 nationally, No. 11 at shooting guard, and No. 11 in the state of California in the Class of 2020.

It will be fascinating to see if San Diego State is invited into the Pac-12. RDW could return to the conference, but not in time to play USC. The Trojans will be off to the Big Ten before that might potentially happen.

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San Diego State now waits to see what Pac-12, George Kliavkoff will do

After their run to the national title game, the #Aztecs are confident they will join the #Pac12, but will plot twists emerge?

The San Diego State Aztecs didn’t win the national championship in men’s college basketball this season, but they came closer than any other team which fell short of that goal. The Aztecs lost to Connecticut in the title game in Houston, but they were one of the two teams left standing on Monday night. Every other school, every other player, every other coach was watching two teams in the final game of a season which began in early November of 2022.

San Diego State was one of those two teams. The Aztecs produced the greatest season in program history. They created the most memorable moment of the 2023 Final Four with their buzzer-beating victory over Florida Atlantic in Saturday’s semifinal.

San Diego State has dramatically raised the profile of the university. The Aztecs have increased the value of their national brand. They are poised to grow as a school and as an athletic program on the basis of this run. We have seen it at other schools such as Gonzaga and Butler and Wichita State.

Now we will wait and see when — and how — George Kliavkoff tries to line up his media rights deal, his invitation to San Diego State, and his larger overall vision for the Pac-12 Conference. It’s very likely SDSU will receive an invitation. How the Aztecs are incorporated into a larger plan is the real question mark.

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Pac-12 expansion: March Madness run helping San Diego State’s case

The Aztecs’ March Madness run makes San Diego State an even more intriguing school for the Pac-12 to consider

Pac-12 expansion has been a popular discussion for the past year. With USC and UCLA beginning their final year in the conference before moving to the Big Ten, more changes are likely coming.

As the college basketball season wraps up, the Pac-12 should seriously consider adding the San Diego State Aztecs, and there are plenty of reasons why.

Yes, the Aztecs men’s basketball team caught everybody’s attention with a thrilling run to the Final Four and the national championship, but there’s more to it than that.

The location is perfect for the Pac-12, and the Southern California market is blossoming with opportunities for the conference once UCLA and USC leave.

The community backs SDSU a ton. Just watch the reaction from the fans at the Padres game when Lamont Butler hit the game-winner over Florida Atlantic:

SDSU’s football program is on the rise as well and just opened a brand new stadium in 2022.

On the basketball court, the Pac-12 struggled in the NCAA Tournament except for UCLA, and Arizona’s loss to Princeton was a shocker. But, the Aztecs aren’t exactly a Cinderella story. Rather, this is a program that has a history of sustained winning in the Mountain West.

After all is said and done, it would be surprising to see the Pac-12 not offer San Diego State a spot in the conference.

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The Pac-12’s case for adding San Diego State

The #Aztecs are certainly more valuable and visible than they were three weeks ago. The #Pac12 knows it needs to act:

Pac-12 expansion is still a massive discussion point. With USC and UCLA leaving next year, something needs to be done quickly.

One program at the forefront for some time has been San Diego State, and with the Aztecs’ improbable run to the Final Four and now the national championship game, those discussions should be even bigger.

There are a lot of reasons why SDSU moving to the Pac-12 makes a lot of sense, and if those reasons weren’t substantial enough already, seeing the Aztecs run through the brackets should be the biggest of them all now.

Let’s dive in for some additional reasons:

National championship predictions: College Wire staff weighs in

Does anyone dare pick against the UConn Huskies? Our network of editors and staff weigh in.

On Monday evening the two remaining teams in the NCAA Tournament will take center stage as they compete for a national championship. Over the last several weeks, the field of 68 has shrunk to just two teams.

One team, the [autotag]San Diego State Aztecs[/autotag], has never been here before. Their coach has been an assistant on teams that played deep in the tournament but the program reached heights not seen before.

On the other bench, you have a program that has won four national titles. When the [autotag]Connecticut Huskies[/autotag] made it to the Final Four, they have cut down the nets in four of their five trips. When they have played for the title, UConn doesn’t head home empty-handed.

Everything is trending the way of UConn but does San Diego State have one more miracle in them? The College Wire staff and network weighed in with their selections for this showdown in Houston.

George Kliavkoff likely saw how San Diego State fans reacted to Final Four win

The @Padres put the #Aztecs on a Petco Park screen. Lamont Butler hit the big shot. San Diego fans went wild. #Pac12 #MFinalFour

The San Diego State Aztecs came back from a 14-point second-half deficit against Florida Atlantic to win the first of two Final Four national semifinals on Saturday in Houston. It wasn’t easy, but this team refused to go away once again.

The Aztecs, down by one point in the final 10 seconds with one timeout, did not call their timeout. They gave the ball to Lamont Butler, who hit the game-winning shot and made the biggest basket in the history of the program to send the Aztecs to the national title game on Monday against Connecticut.

The San Diego Padres also had a game on Saturday evening at Petco Park. The game was scheduled to begin at 5:40 p.m. local time, which figured to be just after the end of the SDSU Final Four game, which started at 3:09.

As it turned out, the first pitch of the Padre game and the end of the Aztec game were very close to each other. The San Diego State victory occurred just before the start of the Padres’ game versus the Colorado Rockies. The introductions for Colorado’s starting lineup were unfolding precisely when the Final Four game ended and San Diego State reached its first NCAA Tournament national championship game.

It was a wild scene at Petco Park in San Diego. The Padres made sure to show the last play on one of their video screens in the ballpark while the other screen displayed the Rockies’ batting order. The reactions and celebrations from the stadium show just what San Diego is about: a community backing its sports teams.

With Pac-12 expansion at the forefront of conversations and San Diego State being a realistic option for the conference, this helps a ton. The community backs the Aztecs and has supported the Aztecs for a long time, especially since Steve Fisher’s arrival and the resurgence of the basketball program nearly two decades ago.

If you’re siting in the Pac-12 office and you see this, it’s hard to ignore. It should definitely help San Diego State’s case in getting into the Pac-12 as an expansion candidate. Let’s see what happens.

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San Diego State, still in Pac-12 spotlight, carries its journey to final stage

Win or lose, the #Aztecs have gone the distance, getting maximum publicity while the #Pac12 considers its options. #MFinalFour

The San Diego State Aztecs trailed the Florida Atlantic Owls, 56-42, midway through the second half of Saturday’s Final Four national semifinal in Houston. If they had lost by 14 or 15 or 20 points, it would have been easy for a lot of people to say they weren’t ready for the big stage, they didn’t really measure up as an elite team, they didn’t separate themselves from the pack, and so on.

A decisive loss on a bigger stage — one could argue — might have done more to hurt San Diego State in the realm of national perception than losing to Alabama by five or six points in the Sweet 16.

Maybe SDSU’s value wasn’t that great after all. Maybe this whole story will die out.

The Aztecs had a response to all of that: They rallied and won.

San Diego State advanced to the NCAA Tournament’s national championship game by beating FAU, 72-71, on a jump shot by Lamont Butler at the buzzer.

San Diego State, with all eyes on the program as a possible candidate for Pac-12 expansion, delivered a memorable March Madness moment on the first day of April. The program’s big national splash now has this immortal moment to further affirm its legitimacy as a big-time player in major college sports.

It just became a lot harder for the Pac-12 to ignore the value of San Diego State. As we wrote a few days ago, George Kliavkoff has to figure out how to sequence his moves the right way, but it seems more and more certain that the Aztecs will join the Pac-12 before too long.

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