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Steve Fisher |
Steve Fisher has guided the Aztec basketball program to unparalleled heights. In eight seasons, he has taken a program that regularly missed out on the conference postseason tournament, to one which has become one of the best programs on the West Coast and has the Aztecs knocking on the door of the elite teams in the country.
The best news for SDSU fans is that Fisher signed a new five-year contract prior to the 2006-07 campaign that will keep the national championship coach in San Diego for the foreseeable future.
When Fisher arrived on the scene in March of 1999, he found a basketball program that wasn't good enough to be called average. The Aztecs had suffered through 13 losing seasons in 14 years. Members of the school's last NCAA team were in the early stages of middle age. The expectations were set. The Aztecs were expected to lose. The year before Fisher's arrival on campus, San Diego State won just four games.
Now those days are a distant memory. Fisher guided SDSU to the 2002 NCAATournament, the postseason NITin 2003, the 2006 NCAATournament and the 2007 NIT last season. In addition, the Aztecs may have their most exciting, most balanced and most experienced team entering the 2007-08 season with nine current Aztecs having been on winning teams that have produced 20 or more victories and advanced to the postseason. Of the nine, seven have been to the NCAATournament and eight have won at least one postseason game.
The ingredients for a successful basketball program seemed to have arrived at San Diego State at approximately the same time Fisher did.
Cox Arena is one of the glaring athletic upgrades on the west side of campus, and its opening signified the new-placed emphasis on basketball in the Aztec athletic department. The program moved from the aging San Diego Sports Arena on the west side of the city to an on-campus home located just steps away from fraternities and sororities.
After the arrival of Cox Arena, one important ingredient was lacking.
On March 26, 1999, San Diego State announced its arrival on the basketball scene in a news conference to introduce its new coach, Steve Fisher. Fresh from a stint with the Sacramento Kings and with three appearances in the Final Four and a national championship in his pocket, he rolled up his sleeves and went to work. And work was needed. It looked to be a daunting challenge and yet the man with one of the highest winning percentages in NCAA Tournament history had no reservations.
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Beth Burns |
The winningest coach in SDSU women's basketball history, Beth Burns is in her third season of her second stint on Montezuma Mesa.
Burns returned to SDSU on April 8, 2005, and immediately began laying the foundation for the program's return to the national spotlight.
This past year, she led the Aztecs to their most wins since 2000-01, finishing as the 11th-most improved team in NCAA Division I and recording the biggest turnaround in back-to-back seasons in Mountain West Conference history. Burns helped point guard Quenese Davis lead the league and rank first nationally among freshmen in assists per game, while center Desiree Johnson was first in the MWC in blocked shots per game for the second year in a row.
Burns has also helped the program find success in both the classroom and on the recruiting trail. This past spring, 10 players were recognized at the department's annual scholar-athlete awards banquet, which honors student-athletes with at least a 3.0 cumulative or 3.2 semester GPA. Among the 10 are seniors Shanna Demus, who received the school's Academic Initiative Medal for her persistent commitment toward meeting her academic goals, and Kate Eveland, who is a member of the elite Phi Beta Kappa honor society.
On the recruiting trail, Burns and her staff have signed each of the last three San Diego Union-Tribune section players of the year, including two-time winner, freshman Paris Johnson.
In her first stint as head coach from 1989-97, Burns took the SDSU women's basketball program full circle, going from 7-23 her first year to 23-7 in her final campaign. During her eight seasons, she compiled a 151-83 record and a 64.5 winning percentage, the best in school history. The Aztecs went to the NCAAs on four occasions (1993, 1994, 1995, 1997), advancing to the second round in 1994.
Burns' teams dominated the Western Athletic Conference from 1994-97, capturing a pair of tournament championships and three regular-season titles. The 1993-94 team set a school record for victories (26), while the 1994-95 squad was a perfect 14-0 in league play. The Aztecs continued their success the following two years by going 20-8 and 23-7, respectively. Burns coached 13 first team all-conference picks in her time at SDSU, including a pair of WAC players of the year in Kieishsha Garnes (1991) and Christina Murguia (1995). Guard Falisha Wright became just the second Aztec women's basketball player to be named an All-American, picking up honorable mention accolades in 1993 and 1994. She finished her career as the school's all-time assists leader and was inducted into the Aztec Hall of Fame in 2002.
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