San Diego State assistant coach Dave Velasquez talks return of Magoon Gwath, transfer portal

The college basketball season is still ongoing, with the final three games of the year set for this weekend at the Final Four in San Antonio. Despite that, the offseason is well underway with the opening of the college basketball transfer portal last week.

San Diego State has had a huge week when it comes to the portal, having added two pieces for next year’s roster in addition to retaining star forward Magoon Gwath. The Aztecs secured commitments from transfers Jeremiah Oden and Sean Newman Jr., two experienced players set to join next season’s team.

The biggest news came on Tuesday night when redshirt freshman forward Magoon Gwath removed his name from the college basketball portal after receiving interest from Kentucky, Michigan and several others. Gwath, along with San Diego State wing Miles Byrd, will both go through the NBA Draft process and have until the middle of June to remove their names from the draft to return to school.

Byrd reiterated on Tuesday night that if he does not stay in the draft he will be returning to San Diego State, not entertaining a possible entrance into the transfer portal.

On Wednesday, San Diego State assistant coach Dave Velasquez joined “Jon & Jim” on 760 AM to discuss the recent news in the Aztec program in addition to NIL fundraising efforts. Here are the highlights from Velasquez’s appearance on San Diego State’s flagship radio station.

ON MAGOON GWATH REMOVING HIS NAME FROM THE TRANSFER PORTAL

“More than anything you know we're so excited about where Magoon was, his growth, his development on and off the court and just to be able to be a part of it for one more year if he doesn't go to the NBA draft. You know it just speaks to what our culture, what our tradition is, and you know he stayed, and he had a lot of offers and he had some big time offers but he believed in our staff, he believes in San Diego State community, and he believes that this is the best place to get him ready for the next level and it's going to be awesome to see the growth over this time."

“Like I said we're gonna root for him to get to the draft but if not, his development going into next season, I mean he was already freshman of the year and defensive player in the year in our league I mean it's going to be it's going to be an exciting time at San Diego State.”

ON THE MESA NIL CAMPAIGN

“When you're involved in it you don't get just a yes you know what I mean there's a lot of conversations that happen and we got to go to work on our reload campaign with Mesa you know that's a that's a real thing and that we have the reload campaign right now we're at 320k out of 500k and we got to get people to give. We have an anonymous matching donor that will get there if we hit that number and that's what it is in college basketball. So, for us you know Mesa is as big of anything to continue to retain our players and continue to get other new players and you know I can't speak on everybody, but you guys read the news, you know we're adding some big-time pieces to this program, some pieces that are going to add value in every which way to this program but to retain the guys we have, to keep the transfer portal quiet from our end you know we need fans, the community to step up, tell a friend, get a friend to step up and help us out.”

ON POSSIBILITY THAT MAGOON GWATH WOULD RETURN

"I did, I think we all did because we knew where Magoon's heart was. You know we knew what his trust in us was and he'd be a fool to not go and see what else was out there. You know it's a business now and fans and coaches we all have to move on from the old days on what it was. It's never going back again you know and so for him to you know look at what he had and then to be able to come back and say okay this is exactly where I want to be. You talk about being you know 10 toes down, two feet in the boat I mean that's as much as you can ever be by going in seeing everything and still saying you know what I'm staying here at San Diego State. I speak to the culture, the tradition Coach Dutcher how he runs the program, how everyone in our program operates, how much his teammates mean to him, his brothers that he's with every single day you know it just it speaks volumes and to have his family trust us as well not just Magoon he's a young kid who relies on his family to help him in this process and you know for them for their trust I mean it's everything you'd want as a coach to be honest with you and it was special for us to have the opportunity to possibly have him back next year.”

ON PUTTING TOGETHER NEXT YEAR’S ROSTER

“It is a huge win and we got to continue to get these other wins, you know Miles is a huge win and he's put himself on the draft boards and hopefully they both get invited to the combine, they great get great feedback from the NBA I think that will only help in their development over the year if they end up not going to the draft to know what they really have to work on, how the NBA sees them. You know we have a lot of other guys on our team you know we're hoping to probably use up to 12 scholarships most likely… There's some other targets out there and so again that reloaded campaign I can't speak enough about how important that is for our fans you know you see all this social media and you see all this love and I love that and that's what makes us in the full Viejas Arena but that comes with the price tag now it just does and we got to continue to support Mesa which supports directly support San Diego State basketball.”

ON THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE PROGRAM

“You know one of the things I want to talk to you guys about today was you know with Miles and with Magoon everything we have with him and Miles doubling down and a guy like Reese Waters and just use the older guys, just use those three you know one of the coolest things we had happened was this past weekend. it was one of our former guys Jared Barnett, he's now a coach up at Pepperdine it was his birthday in town and he got a Airbnb down at Ocean Beach and I walked into that Airbnb on Sunday and there was Micah Parrish, Lamont Butler, Miles Byrd and Elijah Saunders. To get there and to get with all of them just to know what a family, what a brotherhood we have. My kids could not be more excited to see them they ran up to all of them they couldn’t believe what they were seeing in that room.”

“What we have at San Diego State is so special and you know our players feel that and they understand that it's bigger than you know the dollar figure, but at the same time they need it and they deserve it it's the changing landscape that's what it is but what we have here speaks such volumes of what when Coach Fisher got here with Dutcher 25 years ago what you always wanted to have in a program and this thing has gone on for on and on and on for over two decades now two and a half decades of truly family of San Diego State basketball you've seen it at the reunions during the year and you've seen it now even with guys that have left the program this is where they want to come back. Lamont played a game on Friday, on Saturday night he's in San Diego this is home, and this is family, and you can't replicate that and it's so awesome that our current guys are starting to feel that. I think it's something that needed to be said on how close we all are and how much bigger than basketball our program is.”

ON THE COLLEGE BASKETBALL TRANSFER PORTAL

“Well as of today I'd like to fast forward 20 days and just end. As of today, we are in a great place, I mean a great place. It's something that we're continuing to learn how to handle the portal…After today with the Final Four weekend it's a dead period where you can't bring anybody on campus and you can't go visit anyone, you know most of the coaches in college basketball will be heading out to San Antonio for the Final Four but for us you know we finished a visit this morning. We had breakfast looking at the water in the best city in the world and so you know we can't bring anybody in for the next few days and you know again we're just trying to keep what we have here and add the right pieces. Just not any piece, but the right pieces, add the right type of character, add the right type of players that do things that our other guys might not or do things that can really make the other guys better, and I think if you’re really watching and you're studying what San Diego State's doing with the roster that is exactly what we're trying to do. We're trying to add pieces that add value to our team in so many different ways and part of that way being how can they make our other team that we have here already, how can they make them better and we're trying to do that every single day and again it's such a moving target for the next 22 days and seriously can we just get to that date and close this dang thing.”

ON WHAT PROGESSION LOOKS LIKE FOR MAGOON GWATH

I would say consistency and then I would say just overall just a feel to how much he really can do out there. You know we talked about it in his redshirt year when he got to practice those last six weeks. He can play off ball screens, he can play a close out, he can score inside on the block, he can push the ball in transition. You know defensively we've seen what he is, I mean that's incredible defensive player of the year as a freshman playing, I think he played 26 total games so far and he wins defensive player of the year. He's an elite shot blocker if not the best in the country so defensively we got to continue to get him better at some things on that end but offensively it's just being more consistent it's continuing to highlight all the things that he can do on the floor he is an unbelievable basketball player on both ends and we are so lucky to have him.”