The San Diego State men’s basketball team will tailgate outside Snapdragon Stadium ahead of Saturday night’s football game against Oregon State. Also mingling with a plate of food will be two prized recruits.
The season doesn’t begin for two months and practice is limited to only a few hours per week, but this is a key time for college basketball programs. You’ve narrowed your list of high school seniors. Now comes the final step: official campus visits followed by an oral commitment and a national letter of intent in November.
Chris Nwuli and Isaac Carr are scheduled to arrive Friday, with Josiah Sanders coming the following weekend. All three are ranked as the top players in their state.
SDSU is unlike some programs that cast a wider recruiting net and host multiple players on campus visits, hoping to land a modest percentage of them. The Aztecs invite only players to campus they genuinely want, with a hit rate typically well north of 50 percent.
How invested are the coaches in these three?
Coaches fanned out across the West on Wednesday and Thursday, attending their practices, in some cases, a day before they’ll see them on Montezuma Mesa.
Already, the Aztecs have landed a July commitment from Tae Simmons, a powerful 6-foot-7 forward from Northridge who visited last weekend. They figure to take one or two more, with at least four scholarships available for the 2025-26 season.
Nwuli is the highest rated of the trio, a versatile 6-foot-7 wing ranked by ESPN as the No. 41 prospect in the nation and No. 1 in California after transferring to Sierra Canyon High School in Chatsworth from Utah powerhouse Wasatch Academy. He recently unveiled his six finalists: SDSU, UCLA, USC, TCU, Utah and Louisville.
The Aztecs are the only non-power conference school on the list, but they have an advantage the others don’t. Nwuli is from Las Vegas and played with both current freshmen Taj DeGourville and Pharaoh Compton on the Vegas Elite team that reached the final of the prestigious Peach Jam tournament last year.
Compton and Nwuli were on the same middle school team. DeGourville was with him at Wasatch and will be his recruiting host this weekend. Their families are close as well.
Carr, a 6-4 combo guard from Portland’s Central Catholic High, is the top player in Oregon who initially committed in March 2023 to the University of Portland, where his older brother, David, played because he “had a great experience there and I’m grateful to be able to have the same opportunity.”
Carr decommitted two months later and picked Oregon last October. In June, he reopened his recruitment again.
SDSU has pursued him aggressively ever since, with an emphasis on getting at least one guard from the high school class of 2025 given the backlog of young bigs on the roster.
Carr was originally pegged as a shooter but has developed into an all-around guard who can attack the basket – and finish – with both hands as well as a defensive stopper. He led Central Catholic to the 6A (large school) state title last spring, its first in 30 years.
He had 26 points, seven rebounds, seven assists and two steals in the championship game, scoring 11 points in the final 2:40 of the first half to help erase a 13-point deficit and then 10 consecutive points in the third quarter.
Stanford, Colorado, Washington and New Mexico are also thought to be in the mix, with Stanford having an “in” with associate head coach Eric Reveno having coached his brother at Portland.
Sanders is a 6-4 lefty point from Colorado Prep in Denver, also ranked No. 1 in the state, whose stock steadily climbed during the spring and summer AAU circuit. He’s announced five scheduled visits, starting at Colorado last week, then SDSU next week, then Northwestern, Stanford and Tennessee.
The final visit is in the second week of October, and a decision is expected shortly after.
Asked in an interview with Phenom Hoop Report what’s he seeking in a program, Sanders said:
“I’m just making sure to consider all the little things. I also value the relationship with the coaches, players, and staff. Development is really a big thing for me too. On the court, making sure I am getting the work I need to and getting pushed to be better every day is crucial, but off the court too. I want to be the best man I can be because at some point basketball will end. I want to be a great father, man, and person in the long run as well … so somewhere where good ethics and morals are valued.”
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