SDSU SENIOR NIGHT, BUT SOME TO RETURN
Eight players will be honored, though at least 2 coming back
San Diego State will celebrate Senior Night today before its 7 p.m. game against Wyoming at Viejas Arena. Eight guys will walk out with their families.
Coach Brian Dutcher joked that they’ll have to start the festivities at 1.
It is believed to be the largest number of Senior Night honorees in program history, but it doesn’t mean two-thirds of the roster is decimated for next season.
Four have exhausted their eligibility: Aguek Arop, Matt Bradley, Nathan Mensah and Adam Seiko. Three of the eight are walk-ons: Jared Barnett, and twins Triston and Tyler Broughton. And one, starting forward Keshad Johnson, could return for a fifth “COVID” season in 2023-24.
There are two other “seniors” — guard Darrion Trammell and forward Jaedon LeDee — who could participate in Senior Night and have opted not to, a pretty good indication that they’ll be back next season. Both said their preliminary intention is to do so.
That leaves the 6-foot-7 Johnson as the biggest if on the roster.
“I don’t know what the next step for me is,” he said, “but I know I’ve been here four years and that’s the tradition, that after four years you celebrate Senior Night. … If I want to come back, I know Viejas will have the same love for me and I’ll just have another Senior Night.”
The NCAA’s decision to grant an extra year of eligibility to all college athletes who played during the pandemic-abbreviated 2020-21 season continues to sow uncertainty with rosters. Some schools, like SDSU, list players as seniors even though they qualify for an extra year of eligibility. Others list them by how many years they have left — so a junior could be in his fourth year.
There’s an academic component as well: If you’re getting your undergraduate degree this semester, do you want to continue attending school?
Initially, the NCAA did not count “super seniors” against a basketball team’s
13-allotted scholarship players. Now they do, creating an awkward dance of roster management with incoming freshmen and an increasingly robust transfer portal of veterans.
A year ago, Bradley and Seiko announced before Senior Night they would exercising their option for an extra year. Mensah and Arop both walked to center court and received a framed jersey, then made decisions later to return. They’ll walk again tonight.
“Shout out to COVID,” Arop said. “I didn’t have my mind made up, so I walked in case I didn’t come back.”
Arop’s decision was relatively quick. Mensah’s was not, still exploring pro options into late May, more than two months after the transfer portal opened. The longer he took, the smaller the odds of finding a quality replacement.
“We had 5-men ready to come but they said, ‘We’re not coming if Nathan comes back,’ ” Dutcher said. “That was the fine line with Nathan, that we had to wait so long. We kept holding off guys who were impact 5men that we probably could have gotten.
“That’s the only issue it causes for the program, when they’re undecided. When the season is over and the transfer season begins, I’d like to have a clearer idea of who is really interested in coming back or what percent they’re leaning toward coming back.”
He does with Trammell and LeDee. Trammell’s options are limited because he’s still a year from an undergraduate degree after starting at a junior college, then playing two years at Seattle University before transferring to SDSU this season. The 6-9 LeDee, who is in his fifth year of college after redshirting last season, will get his degree this spring and already has started graduate classes in SDSU’s business school.
“I’ve got one more year, so why not?” LeDee said. “I don’t want to talk about next year because this year’s not done, but that’s my mindset, to come back.”
Johnson, though, seems less certain. He has started 61 games and is having statistically his best season, averaging 7.7 points and 5.1 rebounds while being one of the conference’s most versatile defenders.
Players in his situation have three choices: stay at your current school, transfer elsewhere for your final season or turn pro.
“All three options are on the table for me,” said Johnson, who’ll become the first person in his family to graduate from college in May. “It’s a big decision I’ve got to make. It’s just like choosing a college, but it’s even bigger.”
That complicates the process, adding a third element. Mensah immediately ruled out transferring and merely was deciding between returning to SDSU and turning pro.
“Most of the guys have determined what they’re going to do,” Dutcher said. “Keshad is truly undecided. That will be a talk I’ve not had with him one time yet that I’ll have when the season is over: What are you thinking, where is your head at, what are the percentages? Everybody wants to know now, but the only time I need to know is when the season’s over.
“It’s always in the coach’s best interest to know earlier.
It might be not necessarily be in the player’s best interest if they’re exploring professional opportunities, because they’re not going to have those answers for a while. Obviously you want to accelerate it, but the timeline is the timeline.”
One thing that could accelerate it is entering the transfer portal, which opens March 13.
“If they go into the portal, then that’s very easy: OK, then I’m going to look for someone else,” Dutcher said.
“Exploring professional options is one conversation, because that takes time. If you say, ‘I’m going to explore pro options and go in the portal at the same time,’ to me as a coach that’s open season to say, ‘I’m going to look for your replacement. I have to cover my bases.’ I don’t want it dragging on and on.”
The definite departures are significant: your leading scorer and a Mountain West player of the year candidate (Bradley), a defensive player of the year (Mensah), arguably the conference’s best sixth man (Arop) and the school’s career wins leader with 111 (Seiko).
Two incoming freshmen signed in November: 6-9 Miles Heide from Mount Si High outside Seattle and guard B.J. Davis from Modesto Christian.
That means they’ll likely dip into the transfer portal for two players, presumably a big and a scoring guard. And three if Johnson or someone else unexpectedly leaves.
“You hate losing really good players who have won a lot of games for this program,” Dutcher said, “but the only comfort is that we were really deep this year. The guys coming off the bench, some of them, like Micah (Parrish), were capable of being starters. Jaedon was capable of starting games. It’s not like there’s a big drop-off.
“We should have two starting guards back with Darrion and Lamont, then you add Jaedon and Micah, who played significant minutes and contributed. You also have the freshmen (Elijah Saunders and Miles Byrd), who you know are good but couldn’t crack a minute because of all the veterans, ready to step up. And if Keshad, who was a two-year starter, comes back, then we’re pretty intact.
“If Keshad leaves, then there’s something that has to be filled.”