SoCalHoops College News

MWC: San Diego State Preview:
Coaches' Luncheon Notes--(Oct. 9, 1999)

We made some quick notes based on what we heard and read at the LA Athletic Club at the Division I West Coast Coaches Luncheon sponsored by the Wooden Award folks.  Here are some observations on San Diego State for the coming season 1999-2000, the roster, some schedule notes and other assorted stuff:

Steve Fisher, who coached the University of Michigan to the NCAA Championship in 1989, was named head basketball coach at San Diego State University in March.  Fisher, 54, served last year as an assistant coach for the Sacramento Kings of the NBA where he got the chance to join up again with Chris Webber. In eight seasons at Michigan, Fisher compiled a 184-82 overall record (.692 winning percentage) while competing in one of the nation's toughest basketball conferences. He is one of only three head coaches in NCAA history to make three trips to the Final Four in his first five seasons and one of just six to have won both the NCAA Championship (1989) and the NIT Championship (1997).  In his eight years at Michigan Fisher went to the tournament   seven times and appeared in three NCAA Championship games (1989, 1992, 1993). His NCAA Tournament winning percentage of .769 (20-6 record) ranks ninth on the all-time coaches' list. To say that San Diego State is not Michigan, at least from a winning tradition point of view, is to state the obvious.

As we noted in our brief introductory article about Steve Fisher's comments on this year's team,  to quote him from Thursday's luncheon, "There's some good news and some bad news about this team: The good news is that everyone is back, and the bad news is that everyone is back." 

San Deigo State last year went with former Coach Fred Trenkle's youth movement, bringing in seven true freshmen and only one JC player who joined up with two returning lettermen, a redshirt and a walk-on.  Trenkle started two of the freshmen and three others saw significant minutes and the results were predictable, at least in a system where there was no real system, and the team struggled to a 4-22 overall record and a miserable 2-12 record in conference play.  The team struggled to put together a complete game, but the good news is that the majority of the young players return with a season of D-I under their belt.

The other good news is that San Diego State has probably one of the best arenas for basketball on the entire west coast, the Cox Arena, which is only a year old. Combine that with the benefits and climate of San Diego, the tough competition in the new Mountain West Conference, Fisher's long winning record as a head coach, and it's clear that Fisher has all the tools he'll need to establish a winning program and he should be productive in recruiting some major talent to the school. Two of the players on this year's roster will be his signings:  He spent the spring and summer looking around for new talent, and his first signing was Jim Roban, a forward out of Dixie College in St. George, Utah, in April, and then a week later he signed Bradley Jackson out of Bridgeton Academy, a prep school after seeing him at the Rockfish Spring League.   Jackson, who had originally signed with CSUN a year before out of Inglewood HS, ended up not graduating from Inglewood (some speculated intentionally to void his CSUN letter), so he was free to sign again after ultimately qualifying. 

Here's the roster: 

It's kind of hard to talk about returning starters, because no one really knows what Fisher will do with the lineup or who will end up starting, and he didn't give any of us a clue at the luncheon on Thursday.  So we'll just take the players one by one.  In the backccourt, David Abramowitz, a talented and flashy point guard ended up serving mostly a backup role last year after he was hurt and suffered a pulled hamstring.  He's a great passer and very unselfish with the ball, and also has a decent shot.  There's been much speculation about Fisher looking for a point guard to replace him, or that Abramowitz might be "run off" after this season, but we don't see that happening, and neither do our sources at San Diego.  And he's also got the benefit of another major proponent this year joining the choaching staff:  Abramowitz' former high school coach, Jim Twomey, who coached USDHS and Abramowitz to three consecutive San Diego Section titles and a State Division III Championship.  Abramowitz is one of 8 returning letter winners, and he averaged 5.3 ppg and 1.7 rpg, and 2.3 apg, appearing in 24 games, but starting only five times. He also set a singe game three-point percentage record, hitting 5 of 6 (.833) against Southern California College (now Vanguard).  Abramowitz will get some competition this season for the starting spot from Bradley Jackson, the only other true point on the team.  Jackson is a talented, compact but very quick point guard.   The press release notes on his bio state that he "was rated by Athlon as the eighth-best point guard in the nation by Athlon magazine as a senior in high school"   which is not surprising because the rankings for Athlon were done by Recruiting USA's Dave Benezra and Mark Mayemura, and Jackson also played for their Rockfish squad; it was the Rockfish connection which got Jackson into Bridgton Academy, where he averaged 15 ppg and 6.0 apg.  He was heavily recruited by Western Kentucky, Rutgers and Duquesne, but picked SDSU, and really, with Fisher there and only one other point guard who struggled last year, who wouldn't have picked the Aztecs. 

Joining Abramowitz and Jackson in the backcourt will be Michael Marion, Donte Wilson, and Jeffrey Berokoff in the two guard position, although Donte Wilson, the only returning senior can also play the point. Wilson was pretty much a team leader last year, a dubious distinction on a 4-22 team, but hey, everyone has to have a leader. He was the teams third leading scorer at 8.7 ppg, 2.9 apg, and has the distinction of also never fouling out of a game despite playing more than 30 minutes per contest, which means either he's a very clean player or he needs to step up the defensive pressure.  Last year was his first at San Diego, and he played two years at South Plains JC in Levelland, Texas before coming to the Aztecs, where he led his team in steals and three-point shooting, hitting 42% from behind the arc, and we're betting that in a Steve Francis system, he'll be shooting the ball more effectively off of screens and creating more off the dribble. Marion comes in from the College of Eastern Utah, can shoot from the perimeter and is a good rebounder. Berokoff is one of the toughest true two guards around, and he's got great hands and defensive ability, and he got lots of experience last season, appearing in all 26 games. In the final six games of the season Berokoff shot 45% from the field; he's a decent free throw shooter too hitting .612 over the course of the year, and averaged 4.0 ppg last season.

At the forward spots, San Diego has returners Myron Epps, Vincent Okotie, Walter Small, Julien Sormonte, and newcomers Jim Roban, and Eric Rohwer. Epps was one of our favorite high school players, and he's a great athlete, quick and at 6'-6" he can play either out on the wing, the small forward spot or as a power forward, and last year he was probably the most consistent player on the team even as a freshman, averaging almost 30 mintues a game. He was the leading rebounder and the second leading scorer hitting double figures in 17 games. He scored a high of 24 against Fresno State twice in Conference play, and averaged 11.8 over the course of the year. Okotie didn't have a very good start to the season, and the few games we saw last year he was not much of a factor. He's got impressive strength and quickness so he should be a much better player than he was last year. He started 18 games last season, appearing in 25 overall, including 14 of the last 15 of the season. He averaged 4.7 rpg and 8.5 ppg.    Walter Small never really seemed o click on this team, and we had heard that he might be leaving the program, but it looks like he'll stick around to play for coach Fisher to see if it gets better. He never started last season, and his best performance was against Fullerton where he scored 11 points. He shot .457 from the field last season, but just never really got into the offensive flow. As a player at Compton Dominguez, he earned four varsity letters, averaged 17 ppg and 11 rebounds a game, shot 55 percent from the field and 75 percent from the line, and the team won two State Championships and four CIF SS titles, and in our opinion was badly misused and misunderstood last season by the coaching staff, and hopefully he'll get some better playing opportunities and take better advantage of them this season.  Sormonte, who came from Milford Academy via France, is really more of a perimeter player than an inside banger, and could actually get some time at the two or three positions.  Apparently there's an eligibility issue and he'll have to miss the first three games of the season.  Last year he only saw action in three games, so it's still pretty early to say whether he'll actually work into the lineup.  Jim Roban is one of those JC guys who comes in with two years of college ball under his belt having spent two seasons at Dixie JC where he averaged 13.8 ppg and 5.2 rpg, shooting .405 from behind the three-point line and 44.3% overall from the field.   Roban played at Bishop Gorman in Vegas, where Jason Carter (6'-9" Sr. PF) is this year's current sensation.  Eric Rohwer is a good player with great upside, signed by Trenkle last season out of Burbank HS where he played for Ron Quarterman's squad. Eric is a strong, physical player who has worked on his hands and footwork and should be much improved, and he'll have to be if he wants to make it on a team with a coach who didn't recruit him but is looking to make rapid progress.

San Diego has two guys who will play center, Marcelo Correa, who started in 23 games last year, and Joe Mann, who was a backup at the center spot as a freshman.  Mann appeared in 25 games last year, started three times, and averaged about 10 minutes per game this season; Correa started the other 23 games, and led the team in rebounding 8 times.  Whether either of these guys will be able to hang in at the post next year will be the big question because Fisher is looking hard at bringing in some other really big guys, including Derrick Dawes and Glen Batemon. Correa is probably the more skilled of the two currently on the team, and we'd expect that he'll get the starting job early on, but then Fisher isn't saying.

Here's what the schedule looks like, and fortunately for San Diego State, they are blessed with 11 of 15 games prior to the start of the Mountain West Conference competition at home.

One thing is for sure, Coach Fisher will bring a different style of basketball to the San Diego area than local fans have seen in a while. Whether he can actually get it done this season with this team is something that only time will tell. 

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