The Gonzaga Bulldogs and San Diego State Aztecs are set to complete their home-and-home series this upcoming season on Nov. 18, according to college basketball insider Jon Rothstein.

The matchup between two of the top college basketball programs in the West is set to take place in San Diego, California, at the Viejas Arena, where the Aztecs are 43-3 over the past three seasons. 

San Diego State pulled off a rare road win at the McCarthey Athletic Center last season on Dec. 29, when Reese Waters and Jaedon LeDee combined for 42 points in an 84-74 victory over the Bulldogs led by Graham Ike’s 20-point, 10-rebound double-double. That game marked the first double-digit loss at The Kennel for Gonzaga in over a decade.

The Zags will see a much different foe this time around, however, as the Aztecs lost over three-quarters of their minutes played from last season’s squad that fell to UConn in the Sweet 16. Waters is back for his senior season, though Lamont Butler (Kentucky) and Micah Parrish (Ohio State) left via the transfer portal, while LeDee prepares for his first NBA season with the Minnesota Timberwolves after earning All-American honors in 2023-24. Darrion Trammell, who played a key role with 17 points off the bench in last season’s meeting, has since graduated following a five-year college career.

Head coach Brian Dutcher replaced the outgoing talent by bringing in Nick Boyd, a 6-foot-3 guard who started for Florida Atlantic’s Final Four team two seasons ago, as well as Wayne McKinney III, a double-digit scorer with San Diego this past season. The Aztecs, who finished last season ranked No. 28 on Bart Torvik, sit at No. 77 in Torvik’s 2024-25 projections.

Still, the Nov. 18 game should pose quite a challenge as the only true road game on Gonzaga’s nonconference slate to this point. The Bulldogs will also face Kentucky in Seattle (Dec. 7), UConn in New York (Dec. 14) and UCLA in Inglewood, California (Dec. 28) before entertaining an 18-game West Coast Conference schedule. There’s also the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament (Nov. 27-29) in the Bahamas.

Per a report from Rothstein on Tuesday, the Zags agreed to a home-and-home series with Arizona State that’ll begin on Nov. 10 in Spokane. That came out just as the WCC released its league schedule, beginning on Dec. 30 when Gonzaga travels to Malibu, California, to take on Pepperdine.

The Bulldogs have four open slots to fill on their 2024-25 nonconference schedule, according to NCAA rules that state teams can play up to 28 regular season games plus three in-season tournament games. 

Vickie Durham

OBITUARY

Vickie Durham, a beloved mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. She was an accomplished real estate agent, travel agent and business woman. Vickie was born in El Dorado, Oklahoma. She moved to California with her family during World War II and later settled in San Diego. Vickie worked at Hughes Aircraft Company as a blueprint inspector before pursuing a career as an independent real estate agent, travel agent, and business owner.In her golden years, Vickie enjoyed dancing with her late husband Slim (Harry), at San Diego Smooth Dancers. She was a contributing member of her local Red Hat Society, she volunteered at the Old Town Chamber of Commerce, and served as commodore at her local boat club (OBC). Vickie also loved traveling the world with friends and family.A private service will be held at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery.

The San Diego region just got a $4.2 million boost to expand gun violence prevention efforts through court orders designed to quickly get guns out of the hands of people who pose a threat.

The money from two state grants will go to outreach and education about civil court orders, including gun violence restraining orders, that require people who are alleged to be dangerous to turn over their firearms. The funding will also be used to create a task force to enforce those court orders.

San Diego is the most active user of gun violence restraining orders in the state. At a news conference Tuesday at the San Diego Police Department downtown, Attorney General Rob Bonta said the city has “truly been a model for how to use evidence-based, data-driven solutions that work that prevent firearm violence from happening in the first place.”

“It’s also been an exemplary policy and approach that others can learn from,” Bonta said.

Gun violence restraining orders, or GVROs, are judge-approved civil court orders intended for crisis intervention. They require a person to surrender or sell their firearms and bar the person from having guns or ammunition for the duration of the order, which can last up to five years.

Supporters of such orders hail them as a vital public safety measure to intervene in dangerous behavior. Critics disparage them as overreach and an affront to the Second Amendment.

City Attorney Mara Elliott has championed gun violence restraining orders, and her office said Tuesday it has obtained more of them than any other city in the nation. Law enforcement working with the San Diego City Attorney’s Office have seized more than 3,700 guns using the orders.

Elliott said the grant money “will lead to one of the most significant expansions of gun violence prevention work in California” since the state law creating them was passed, prompted by the 2014 mass shooting near UC Santa Barbara that killed six people.

Of the new funding coming to the region, $2 million from the state’s Judicial Council will go toward a new Firearms Relinquishment Task Force to enforce court orders intended to disarm people alleged to pose a threat. The task force met for the first time last week.

The remaining $2.2 million, from the California Department of Justice, will go toward law enforcement training and public education about gun violence restraining orders and other court orders designed to separate a person from firearms. That money will go to the San Diego City Attorney’s Office.

Tuesday’s announcement of increased funding comes little more than six weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of removing firearms from certain dangerous people such as domestic violence suspects, the City Attorney’s Office noted in a news release. It added that California is “doubling down” on using court orders to disarm people who pose a threat.

The state’s gun violence restraining order law went into effect in 2016. From then to the end of last year, two California counties account for 44 percent of all such orders — Santa Clara and San Diego, according to a report that Bonta’s Office of Gun Violence Protection issued in June.

San Diego County also had “by far the highest number” of gun violence restraining orders made into “permanent” orders, which can last up to five years, during that same eight-year stretch, the report stated — 35 percent of all the long-term orders in California were issued in San Diego.

Gun violence restraining orders are often obtained very quickly after an incident or threat. They start as temporary 21-day orders, followed by a court hearing for a judge to consider extending them.

Many of those do not turn into long-term orders, and it’s not uncommon for the temporary order to be dissolved. Sometimes deals are struck to handle cases through less restrictive means, and people can get their weapons back sooner.

California has nine types of court orders that can remove guns from people, including in cases alleging domestic violence, workplace violence or civil harassment. The report from Bonta’s office states that gun violence restraining orders accounted for 1 percent of the orders issued with firearm provisions in 2023.

Originally Published: August 6, 2024 at 6:35 p.m.