As coach Brian Dutcher gathered the team at the start of practice Thursday, redshirt sophomore guard Miles Byrd affectionately draped one arm over the shoulder of walk-on Cam Lawin and his other over the shoulder of senior Kimo Ferrari.
He provided a similar message of allegiance with his words a few moments earlier.
Asked about the three-pronged decision for his basketball future — turn pro, return to SDSU or enter the transfer portal to play elsewhere next season — Byrd eliminated one of them.
“No portal for me,” the 6-foot-7 guard said. “If I’m coming back to college, I’m coming back to SDSU.”
It amounts to a major pronouncement at a time of the season when players are already planning for the next one, with their representatives considering and even soliciting (and even provisionally accepting) NIL offers from other programs as college basketball has devolved into unrestricted free agency without a salary cap.
Not only that, Byrd said he is actively recruiting teammates to return to SDSU next season.
“That is what’s funny about college basketball nowadays,” Byrd said. “You have to recruit within the team still. We all want to play together. We all love SD. Hopefully, that becomes a real thing.”
It’s certainly moving in that direction.
Last week, 6-6 guard Reese Waters announced he will seek a medical waiver for a senior year wiped out by a stress fracture in his foot and will play for SDSU next season. Starting point guard Nick Boyd is widely expected to him; when he arrived at Montezuma Mesa last summer, he said it was a two-year commitment.
Byrd’s return, of course, is contingent on whether he enters the NBA draft.
He ranks 14th in the Mountain West scoring (12.7 points), seventh in 3-pointers (1.88 per game), fourth in free throw accuracy (84.1%), third in steals (2.04) and ninth in blocks (0.96).
Byrd popped onto scouts’ radars on Jan. 14 against Colorado State, with 25 points, six rebounds and seven steals while shutting down Rams wing Nique Clifford, considered the Mountain West’s top pro prospect. Nearly half of NBA teams had representatives at Viejas Arena that night.
Since then, though, his numbers have cooled considerably, in part because of a pair of minor dings: a recurring hip issue that required a pain-killing injection this week, and a badly sprained thumb on his right (non-shooting) hand that has impaired the rotation on his shot.
Multiple scouts who have attended recent Aztecs games have privately said they consider Byrd an intriguing prospect and potential first-round pick given his combination of next-level length and athleticism. But many also have said they’re not sure he’s ready yet, both physically and mentally, and likely needs another year in college.
There is little downside for an underclassman to explore those options, and Byrd indicated he’ll dip his toes in the pro waters after the season. The deadline to declare for the draft is April 26. The last day to withdraw and retain college eligibility is May 28.
“I’ll maybe do some pre-draft stuff with my agency and see where that takes me,” Byrd said, “but right now all I care about is how we finish out this year and where we seed ourselves come March.”
Eliminating the portal option — “I’m not entertaining anything,” he said — removes stress from Byrd. It also lowers the anxiety meter for his coaches.
“I get the chills,” assistant coach Dave Velasquez said when told of Byrd’s unscripted announcement during a routine interview session ahead of Saturday’s game at Wyoming. “That’s what you want to hear. That’s what college basketball is supposed to be about. From the moment we started recruiting Miles, we’ve been honest, we’ve had a great relationship with him and his family. That type of mindset moving forward, it should help some of the other guys that are going to have to make that decision.
“For Miles to say that, it means a lot to me, it’s means a lot to our staff, it means a lot to our program and at the end of the day it means a lot to the university, to have one of the best players in the country say: ‘If I don’t go to the NBA draft, I’m coming back to this university.’”
