JayDee Luster finally returns home as Aztecs basketball coach

Hoover High and Viejas Arena are about two miles apart. It took JayDee Luster nearly two decades to get there, with detours through Las Cruces, N.M.; Laramie, Wyo.; Tucson, Ariz.; Peoria, Ill.; Dallas; and Stockton.

But he got there, finally. Sometimes life’s winding road deposits you just down the street.

“It’s crazy,” Luster said. “It’s crazy, it’s crazy.”

The kid who grew up in the shadow of Steve Fisher and Brian Dutcher’s great reconstruction project on Montezuma Mesa, who dreamed of playing basketball there, who dreamed of just being there, is now part of it. Luster was hired this week as an assistant coach on Dutcher’s staff to replace Jay Morris, who left earlier this month also to return home, to Los Angeles and USC.

Luster never changed his cell number with the 619 area code. He never switched the San Diego address on his driver’s license.

“Growing up in San Diego,” he said, “and having a front-row seat for what Coach Fisher and Coach Dutcher and their staffs have been able to put together from, really, ground zero has been an absolute pleasure to watch. It’s been a joy for the entire city.

“I’ve always been proud of San Diego State and what the program has done. I always rooted for San Diego State. I definitely will wear San Diego State across my chest with pride and with honor. This is definitely not just another job for me. This is a dream opportunity for me.”

There was a time when Luster, and everyone else in the San Diego basketball community, just sort of assumed Viejas Arena would be his office. He played in the CIF Division II championship game there as a 5-foot-6 freshman at Hoover, finishing with 21 points and five assists, and by his junior season he was on pace to break Jason Kidd’s national prep assist record.

Hoover High’s JayDee Luster sits with coach Ollie Goulston during a 2003 scrimmage.

(U-T file)

But a chipped bone in his ankle during the summer recruiting circuit and cracked ribs from a car accident during his senior season limited his options. He settled on New Mexico State, only to see the ESPN ticker on a television during his graduation party announce that head coach Reggie Theus was leaving.

After one season in Las Cruces, he transferred. SDSU already had a 5-9 guard in Richie Williams and politely passed. Luster went to Wyoming, where he was named captain before his first game and became Mountain West defensive player of the year. And where he famously engineered an epic comeback against the Aztecs in Laramie, down 14 inside five minutes to go, making three 3-pointers in the final 2½ minutes and the dagger with 4.9 seconds left for an 85-83 win.

“Coach Fisher never lets me forget that,” Luster joked.

When Fisher passed on Luster as a transfer, he explained that “sometimes, timing is everything is recruiting.” The same goes for coaching. Luster has been a candidate for openings at SDSU twice before.

Wyoming guard Arthur Bouedo, left, celebrates with teammate JayDee Luster after Wyoming defeated San Diego State in an NCAA college basketball game on Saturday, Jan. 9, 2010 in Laramie, Wyo.

(Andy Carpenean/AP)

“It’s the right time and place, the right situation,” Dutcher said. “Everything lined up this time. He’s built himself a reputation as an excellent recruiter, a great skills development coach and a big-time relationship guy with the players. We’re really excited to have him.”

Luster’s coaching journey took him to Arizona as a grad assistant on Sean Miller’s staff, then Bradley as a DOBO (director of basketball operations), then to the Dallas Mavericks for a year as a player development coach. Then five years in Stockton, where Damon Stoudamire hired him to help rebuild a Pacific program ravaged by NCAA sanctions.

When they arrived, they were allowed eight scholarships (of the maximum 13), were prohibited from recruiting for 10 weeks, were limited to only two player visits per year and faced a postseason ban. By their second year, the Tigers finished fourth in the West Coast Conference. By 2019-20, they went 11-5 and finished third.

“I think we changed the perception from when we first got there,” Luster said. “As far as basketball on the West Coast, Pacific wasn’t really something that was talked about. When we were going into kids’ homes initially, it almost was like we had to familiarize them with who Pacific is and where it’s located. But now I feel like guys are familiar with us on the West Coast.

“That’s what I’m most proud of. We were able to leave it better than when we got there.”

Recruiting is certainly a big component of his new job, but it was something else Morris did, largely unseen, that may have separated the 32-year-old Luster from a stack of resumes that Dutcher described as “long and impressive” and included several former Div. I head coaches.

“You want the best person for the job, regardless of age,” Dutcher said. “But JayDee is closer in age to our players. He has the ability to relate to them on a different level. He played college basketball in the Mountain West. He knows the landscape, and he can help the guys navigate that landscape.”

Luster, who grew up with a single mother in a rough San Diego neighborhood, put it like this:

“I think I have a great balance of understanding the players’ perspective but also understanding what I need to get out of them from a coach’s standpoint. I have an ability to connect with them, not just because I played. I come from a similar background as a lot of these kids. I think that’s one of my gifts.”

Stoudamire left in early July for the Boston Celtics to become an assistant on Ime Udoka’s staff. One of the first moves by new Pacific head coach Leonard Perry was to keep Luster, but completing the two-mile journey from Hoover to SDSU proved too big of a draw.

“Coach Dutcher is one of the best coaches in the country,” Luster said. “I believe Dave Velasquez and Chris Acker will be head coaches one day and they’re two of the best assistant coaches in the country as well. But more importantly, they’re really good people, and I think that goes unnoticed. It’s a special place. A lot of times, when you have a special place, it’s because of the people.”

Luster was asked what it will be like walking onto the floor for a game in Viejas Arena this fall, 17 years after he first played there as an unassuming high school freshman.

“I’m sure I will get chills,” he said. “I’m sure there will be some goose bumps. I’m sure it will be an experience like no other. Yeah, I’m sure.”