First deep look at Fresno State’s rebuilt basketball roster as practice begins

Justin Hutson got to the end of his second season as Fresno State men’s basketball coach with roster flexibility that he just did not have at the end of the first, with a painfully low Academic Progress Rate score that threatened the Bulldogs’ postseason eligibility coming off the books after four years.

“It was the first time you could really look at it and say, ‘OK, what do we want to do?’” he said.

Hutson and his staff had options and with a strong group of freshmen already signed for this season what they wanted was to get older, particularly in the backcourt, to address some late-game inconsistency, turnovers, defense.

Experienced guards had taken them apart at times last season starting with Payton Pritchard and his 24-7-7 in the opener at Oregon and ending with Air Force’s A.J. Walker and his 24-4-3 at the Mountain West Tournament, with Jordan Ford, Sam Merrill, Jalen Harris, Derrick Alston, Malachi Flynn and a few more in between.

By early April they were better but not necessarily older, landing transfers Isaiah Hill from Tulsa and Deon Stroud from Texas-El Paso, San Joaquin Valley products who wanted to get back home as COVID-19 was cratering college athletics.

But as they worked the NCAA transfer portal, Devin Gage also stood out.

Gage was about to graduate from DePaul after playing point guard for three-plus seasons in the Big East Conference, would be immediately eligible at his next stop and because of all of the above would be a high-profile target on the transfer market.

“When you see a grad transfer in the portal, they’re like gold,” associate head coach Tarvish Felton said. “Everybody is going to be calling.”

A lot did, but Hutson and his staff were able to land Gage and when Jarred Hyder decided to transfer, which was not unexpected, the Bulldogs added more experience with junior college guard Kyle Harding.

Bulldogs open practice

The team that Hutson put through their first practice on Wednesday for a potential 2020-21 season ended up checking all of the boxes.

“We liked who we had last year,” Hutson said. “We liked our freshmen, we really did. But we wanted to get older and stay older and balance our classes out and I think we did that. We’re not as experienced as we’d like to be right now, but we did that.”

The Bulldogs bring back forward Orlando Robinson and Anthony Holland, who played 27.3 and 24.1 minutes per game as freshmen last season. The 7-foot Assane Diouf returns as does guard Jordan Campbell, a mid-year transfer from Oregon State who got into eight games.

Hutson and his staff in the fall signed a strong group, good fits for what they wanted to do going forward. They had a guard in Destin Whitaker who can shoot the basketball, knock down a three, an area they had struggled at times hitting 30% or less in 12 games. They had a 6-7 wing in Leo Colimerio, a long and athletic scorer with the ability to defend multiple positions. Center Braxton Meah is 7 feet tall and skilled, competitive and athletic.

“I’m really excited about these new guys,” Hutson said. “Deon can score that basketball. Isaiah and Devin are good point guards. We expected Jordan to step up and be better. We have good freshmen coming in that we’re excited about. We have Orlando and Anthony back, and Christian Gray is back in the fold, making us a little older.

“Bringing Kyle (Harding) in as an older guy helps, too. We really like our newcomers. Braxton Meah has a chance to be great. Destin Whitaker can really shoot it. Leo is a smart athlete. He’s a high-IQ basketball player. He’s a guy with a great feel, but he’s also a high flier and those two things don’t always match. You don’t always get both of those in a basketball player.”

Fresno State lost guard Niven Hart, who decided to stay in the NBA Draft pool after his freshman season at Fresno State and getting consistent playing time for only the final third of the year.

But if Stroud is granted a waiver to play this season as expected the Bulldogs have an answer, and they were able to get Cal Poly transfer Junior Ballard to fill that scholarship.

“There are a lot of guys that you could see being feature pieces,” assistant coach Tim Shelton said.

Hutson and his staff were able to check the transfer portal with intent, not just a passing curiosity, trying to find answers.

“I checked, every day,” Shelton said. “Coach Felton and I, we were checking and checking and checking.”

Hill is from Bakersfield and Hutson and his staff had recruited him when he was a senior at Liberty High, where he set the career scoring record.

Stroud is from Fresno, had played at Memorial High and was also familiar with Hutson and the Bulldogs’ program.

Both just made sense.

Gage was the tricky one, but Fresno State was not starting from zero.

Connection through academic adviser

“You play that game, six degrees of separation, where you try to figure out, ‘Who do I know that knows him?’” Felton said. “You try to connect the dots.”

There was a connection through the AAU program that Gage played for coming up, and when Hutson dialed the number of the academic adviser at DePaul a name popped up on his phone.

“When I was at UNLV that academic adviser worked at Bishop Gorman,” Hutson said, referring to a top private high school in Las Vegas. “When I was recruiting Shabazz Muhammad and Stephen Zimmerman and different people at Gorman, he was at Gorman. He picked up and said, ‘Hey, Coach Hut …’ I was like, ‘Man, it’s a small world.’”

As the Fresno State coaches evaluated Gage and other point guard options in the portal, their focus sharpened.

“You watch a lot of film,” Felton said. “You had a chance to watch him in a lot of game situations at the Division I level. That’s what’s so attractive about transfers. You get to see them play at or above your level.

“We sat down as a staff and watched quite a bit of his stuff, just watched him in game situations and watched his decision-making, what he can and can’t do. Then you have to make a decision – does his style of play translate to how you want to play?”

Hutson said, “You’re always trying to get the best guys for you, your kind of guys. In a perfect world you’re going to balance them out a little bit and you’re going to get older and stay older.

“I’m happy with who we have. I wish we were practicing a little earlier so we’d know each other a little more, but I am happy with who we have.”

This story was originally published October 15, 2020 at 5:00 AM.