PULLIAM, TOMAIC RETURNING FOR ’21-22
Pair take up offer of extra year of eligibility at SDSU
The morning after getting a commitment from coveted Cal transfer Matt Bradley, San Diego State added a veteran point guard and 6-foot-9 post to its 2021-22 basketball roster.
You might have heard of them: Trey Pulliam and Joshua Tomaic.
Ordinarily, both would have exhausted their eligibility last season, but the NCAA extended a blanket offer of an extra year to all athletes in winter sports. Matt Mitchell, Jordan Schakel and Terrell Gomez opted not to become “super seniors;” Pulliam and Tomaic did. The school made it official with an announcement Tuesday morning.
Both played key roles in SDSU’s stretch run that included a 14game win streak, regular season and conference tournament titles, and a trip to the NCAA Tournament.
“We’ve all been playing with each other, know each other, know each other’s games,” Pulliam said. “We like playing with each other. We play well together. I think it will be good. We have a nice core, and with the pieces we’re adding, I think we’ll be really good.”
Pulliam came to SDSU two years ago from Navarro College in Texas, backing up future first-round NBA Draft pick Malachi Flynn as a junior and taking over as starting point guard last season. He struggled ini
tially to adjust to the expanded role, but the coaches continued to start him even as freshman point Lamont Butler had big games off the bench.
That faith paid off in February and March, when Pulliam was arguably the team’s MVP and had six of his eight career double-figure scoring games. He twice had 18-point games and was the only effective Aztecs player in the NCAA Tournament loss against Syracuse, with eight points (2 of 3 behind the arc), four rebounds, six assists, three steals and only one turnover.
His assist-to-turnover ratio (2.36:1) last season led the Mountain West and is fourth best at SDSU in the Steve Fisher-Brian Dutcher era, trailing Flynn, Trey Kell and D.J. Gay. He also developed into a lock-down perimeter defender, with .682 points allowed per possession according to Synergy analytics — the fewest in the conference among players with at least 215 possessions.
“I feel like for me it’s the right decision, especially with how I ended last season,” Pulliam said. “I feel like I’m just getting in my rhythm, really. … The coaches have told me since day one to just play my game, that they believe in me. It was just me getting comfortable and believing in myself and seeing a lot of stuff I work on every day translate to the game.”
Said Tomaic: “He’s a great PG. I told him, ‘I think we can have a great run again.’ With him coming back, I think he’s going to be even better. He’s going to recognize things on the floor that probably he wasn’t able to do this year. He’s a great player. He hasn’t really showed yet what he can do.”
Pulliam was known to be leaning toward a return. Tomaic’s was less certain, though. As a Spanish citizen from the Canary Islands, he’s a valuable commodity in European pro leagues because he doesn’t count against a team’s foreign allotment.
Two weeks ago, he posted a photo on social media of his shoes next to the Mountain West Tournament trophy with a message saying “I can’t express in words how much this season has meant to me” and thanking SDSU “for letting me be part of this family.”
Some interpreted that as a farewell. It wasn’t.
“This is a great school, I love the coaching staff, we had a successful season,” Tomaic said. “It’s a beautiful city. I love my teammates. Everything really lined up. It was like, what else can I ask for? … I’m part of a family. I just really like this place.
“It reminds me of home a little bit as well. I’ve told people close to me that San Diego has a lot of similarities to the Canary Islands, and I think that helps me. I haven’t been home now in two years. There are also people who speak Spanish a lot in the area. Being at San Diego State just makes me happy.”
Another factor: The pandemic eliminated summer workouts and heavily restricted them in the fall after Tomaic transferred from Maryland last year, stunting his acclimatization to the program. He plans to use the spring, summer and fall to retool his body and work on parts of his game that best fit SDSU’s needs.
He averaged 4.6 points and 3.3 rebounds in 15.7 minutes, all career bests, as a backup to Nathan Mensah. He also shot 50.5 percent, second best on the team among players with at least 10 attempts, and ranked 14th in the Mountain West in offensive rebounding (1.48 per game). He had zero assists in 62 games at Maryland;
he had 17 last season for the Aztecs.
Pulliam is on pace to receive his undergraduate degree this spring and will enroll in a master’s program during the fall. Tomaic completed his undergraduate degree at Maryland and is halfway through a two-year master’s program at SDSU focusing on homeland security.
That leaves Dutcher with 11 scholarship players for 2021-22, including Bradley and incoming freshman Demarshay Johnson. The NCAA will not count returning “super seniors” against the usual scholarship maximum of 13, meaning the Aztecs could go up to 15 next season.
Dutcher has said even 13 is too many, given the potential chemistry issues from a lack of playing time for everyone. The Aztecs are known to be pursuing a small forward to replace Mitchell and possibly another big to provide more front court depth given junior Aguek Arop’s struggles with illness and injury.
The top target at the 3 appeared to be Utah transfer Timmy Allen, an all-conference player who averaged 15.6 points, 6.3 rebounds and 3.1 assists in his first three college seasons. But Allen committed to Texas and new coach Chris Beard on Tuesday evening.
The Aztecs currently have no players in the transfer portal, although that could change as players are added to the roster.