By Sandeep Chandok (@sandeepchandok):
Imagine it’s your first year as a head coach of a Division I basketball program and the team you inherited is coming off a 14-16 record — the school’s best since 2010-11.
But then, within your first couple weeks on the job, your best player decides to transfer to another school.
While you imagined it, new San Jose State men’s basketball head coach Jean Prioleau lived it.
Former SJSU star forward Brandon Clarke recently departed the Spartans for the Gonzaga Bulldogs, an elite Division I program that competes in the NCAA Tournament nearly every year.
“We weren’t happy about it, but we had to deal with,” Prioleau said of Clarke’s decision. “[But] we gotta go to work… when things happen, you have to get up and you have to move forward.”
In his two seasons at SJSU, the 6-foot-8 Clarke secured Mountain West Sixth Man of the Year as a freshman and posted 17.3 points and 8.7 rebounds a game as a sophomore en route to All First-Team honors. He also led the Spartans to 14 wins last season, a five-game improvement from 2015-16.
Junior swingman Jaycee Hillsman was recruited to San Jose the same year as Clarke and built a friendship with him in their two years together. But Hillsman understands how the game goes.
“That’s a good friend of mine, so it’s tough,” Hillsman said. “But things happen in college basketball — it’s the nature of the beast.”
With Clarke no longer on the Spartans’ roster, minutes will be up for grabs as well as a need for production on the court.
But according to Prioleau, making up for Clarke’s absence won’t fall on one player. It’s a team game and will require a collective effort.
“This isn’t where you write ‘[Keith] Fisher and Oumar [Barry] are the ones that are gonna,’ no… because that disrespects the other guys that are working hard every single day,” Prioleau said when asked who he expects to fill Clarke’s spot. “It’s gonna be done by committee.”
Before resigning over the summer, then SJSU head coach Dave Wojcik recruited former Big East forward, 6-foot-10 Oumar Barry of DePaul University.
Coming out of high school, Barry was on ESPN’s top-10 prospects list for Virginia. He brings tremendous length to the Spartans and will be their last line of defense.
“I think Oumar’s gonna be a really good rim protector for us,” said junior forward Ryan Welage. “I think he’s really gonna help with that and rebounding as well.”
Welage added that both shot-blocking and grabbing boards will be a team effort, in agreement with his coach. But along with the demand for defense will be an on-call for offense.
As a sophomore, Welage posted 13.2 points per contest including 36 percent shooting from distance. This season, Hillsman expects the stretch big to be the go-to guy.
“I think people forget we still have Welly,” Hillsman said, chuckling. “Welly can put points on the board man, quite like no other person — one of the best scorers in the Mountain West. He’s gonna have to lead us in scoring this year.”
Points won’t solely be dependent of Welage, but he will surely get more buckets than he did last season. However, he isn’t the only guy who will draw attention from opposing teams this winter.
“We got a new guy by the name of Keith Fisher and he’s an animal out there,” Hillsman said.
Fisher is entering his redshirt freshman season after sitting out last year and will be an impact player from the jump.
The 6-foot-8 Los Angeles product was the No. 2 ranked power forward in California by ESPN in 2015. He finished his Westchester High School career with an absurd 19.8 points and 11.1 boards per game his senior year.
“He’s really gonna help us out,” Welage said of Fisher. “B.C. (Brandon Clarke) leaving, he’s gonna be one of the guys to help pick up his production — he’s a big time energy guy.”
Whether it’s Fisher cleaning up the glass, Barry blocking shots or Welage splashing from beyond the arc, the team will see multiple guys elevate their game beginning in late October.
Sure, Clarke is gone, but the Spartans know they can’t dwell on the past. Come Oct. 29 at the Event Center, it’s a new season.
“We got guys that will fill in each and every little part of what he did,” Hillsman said. “Not so much as somebody just coming in and taking over his role…but like coach said, it’s gonna have to be a group effort.”