By Lindsey Boyd & Ernie Gonzalez (@lindsboyd3 & @superego1012):
San Jose State men’s hoops juniors Ryan Welage and Jaycee Hillsman and freshman Keith Fisher III have all requested to transfer out of the program, per ESPN college basketball insider Jeff Goodman.
The announcement comes just eight days after the Spartans were booted in the first round of the Mountain West Tournament, marking a long-awaited end to a forgettable one-win 2017-18 conference season.
It’s the second year in a row SJSU will lose its leading scorer via a transfer. Brandon Clarke, who topped the conference in 2016-17 hitting 59.2 percent of his shots and led Spartans in scoring with 17.4 PPG left to play for Gonzaga University after two seasons at SJSU.
Welage ended his junior season with the best numbers of his career, averaging 18.1 PPG, good for fourth-best in the conference. He hit from deep 42.9 percent of the time, a conference fifth best. The Greensburg, Ind. native also owns the Spartans’ all-time three pointers made record at 161.
“I’m not sure yet,” Welage said on where he plans to transfer in an exclusive interview with The Spear. “Going to wait until I have explored all my options and then narrow it down from there. Would love to be closer to home though.”
Jaycee Hillsman was second on the team behind Welage with 14 double-figure performances. The guard from Champaign, Ill. averaged 9.4 PPG and 4.2 RPG, and he and Welage combined for 49 of the 61 points in SJSU’s conference tournament loss to Wyoming to end their Spartan careers.
Both Welage and Hillsman have one year remaining of eligibility, but because of the transfer, they will have to sit a year to play a year.
Fisher III, who sat the 2016-17 year as a redshirt, was an energizer bunny for the Spartans and worked his way into the starting five by the start of conference play in December.
The Los Angeles native will end his short-lived SJSU career with 312 points, all of which came this season. Fisher III was a 49.2 percent shooter on the year, dropped 10.4 PPG and collected 6.3 RPG. He led the team with three double-doubles this season and upped his career-high twice in the same week from 16 to 26.
Hillsman, Fisher III and head coach Jean Prioleau have not commented on the news.
As for what it means moving forward for the Spartans, there is no replacement for three players who combine for 50 of 65 (77 percent) points per game on a 4-25 Division I program.
For Prioleau however, who will enter his second season at the helm, this marks the dawn of plenty of sleepless nights to come as once again, the Spartans have some major shoes to fill.