Aztecs ramp up basketball recruiting with campus visits

COVID-19 didn’t stop the college basketball season but it did slam the brakes on in-person recruiting for more than a year, prohibiting coaches from hosting prospects and their families on campus or visiting them in their hometowns.

The moratorium was lifted in June, and the San Diego State coaching staff finally resumed what it hadn’t in nearly two years: hosting official visits to Montezuma Mesa, walking them across campus on another clear, sunny, California afternoon, showing them the city by the Pacific Ocean, touring the JAM Center practice facility with Kawhi Leonard’s hand logo on the wall, taking them inside Viejas Arena and letting them imagine what it sounds like with all 12,414 seats filled.

Elijah Saunders came last week. Koren Johnson arrived Wednesday. Miles Byrd is due over the weekend.

The Aztecs are finalists for all three high school seniors and, possibly, the favorites.

Coach Brian Dutcher has seven seniors on the 2021-22 roster and says he’d like to replace them with a mix of high school seniors and college transfers. These three, then, figure to be the leading candidates to fill that first bucket.

Saunders, a 6-foot-8, 220-pound power forward from Sunnyslope High in Phoenix, may take the longest of the three to decide. He tweeted pictures with his parents at SDSU with the hashtag, “#notcommitted.” He has yet to visit his other finalists: South Carolina, Notre Dame, Virginia Tech and Miami.

The Aztecs are the only non-power conference school among the final five. They’re also the only school not in the Eastern time zone, and Saunders would have a shot at immediate playing time with the departure of bigs Joshua Tomaic, Tahirou Diabate and Aguek Arop.

“He looks like an NFL tight end,” Sunnyslope coach Ray Portela told Irish Sports Daily. “For a high school player, his physical frame, you don’t see that every day. Plus, with a guy that big who can move quickly, he can guard guys out on the perimeter. He shoots the 3 extremely well and stretches the floor. As a player, he presents problems. You don’t see kids like this in college very much.”

Johnson is a 6-2 guard from Seattle who will spend his senior season at Wasatch Academy, a prep school in Mount Pleasant, Utah, that is part of an ESPN-televised national league with basketball factories like Oak Hill, Sunrise Christian, La Lumiere and Montverde. A four-star prospect ranked as the nation’s 78^th senior by 247Sports, Johnson is a combo guard equally comfortable running the point or as a primary scorer.

“An explosive athlete who can overwhelm the opposition with his length and quickness defensively,” former Gonzaga star Dan Dickau told SBLive in an evaluation of Washington state’s top prep players. “The thing I liked most the first time I saw him play was his ability to change speeds and directions to create space and get where he wanted on the court. He plays with a calming presence that rubs off on others.”

Johnson won a state title with Seattle’s Garfield High, coach by former NBA player Brandon Roy. His list includes Arizona, Washington, Washington State and Clemson, although the Aztecs are considered the front-runner.

Byrd, a 6-7 lefty from Lincoln High in Stockton, has gone from no Division I offers at this time last year to interest from the Pac-12 and Big Ten (and a four-star rating from 247Sports) once coaches realized that he’s two years younger than many seniors. He doesn’t turn 17 until October. Translation: high ceiling.

New SDSU assistant coach JayDee Luster, who replaced Jay Morris last week, knows Byrd well. Luster coached with his father, Calvin, at Pacific and was their neighbor in Stockton.

Byrd visited Colorado State earlier this month and has trips planned to Washington and Minnesota later in September. Villanova, where his father played in the early 1990s, has shown interest but not offered.

Trojans introduce Morris

USC made it official Monday and announced what had been known for weeks, that Morris has been hired as an assistant coach on Andy Enfield’s staff. He becomes the third SDSU assistant to leave for USC (Marvin Menzies and Tony Bland are the others) and the second in three years to go to the Pac-12 (UCLA hired Rod Palmer in 2019).

Morris had been SDSU’s lead recruiter, but the only real overlap in prospects was Oziyah Sellers, a 6-5 wing from Modesto. Sellers visited SDSU in late July and committed to USC on Aug. 15, three days after news first broke about Morris leaving the Aztecs.

Sellers may have already made up his mind, however. He has since admitted USC was always his dream school and recently told On3.com, “Last year I went up to the campus with my family and I’m like ‘Yo, this is where I wanna be.’ After Pangos (camp in June), I got the offer and then it was pretty much a no-brainer.”

Seiko starting for Uganda

SDSU senior guard Adam Seiko is still in Rwanda for FIBA AfroBasket, Africa’s continental championship. He’s still there because Uganda keeps winning.

The Silverbacks, as the national team is called, upset Nigeria 80-62 in a play-in game for the quarterfinals and now face Cape Verde on Thursday for a spot in the semis (games are televised on ESPN+). Seiko is starting and through four games is averaging a team-high 14 points and 3.5 rebounds in 24.7 minutes while shooting 48 percent beyond the 3-point arc.

Also on the roster is Arthur Kaluma, Seiko’s younger brother who will be a freshman at Creighton this year. Ishmail Wainwright, who played football and basketball at Baylor and recently signed with the NBA’s Toronto Raptors, is averaging 12.5 points, 9.8 rebounds and 7.0 assists.