USD basketball goes young — really young — in Year 2 under Steve Lavin

A year ago, coach Steve Lavin had 12 newcomers on his USD basketball roster.

This year, he has 10.

That’s where the similarities end.

Lavin has assembled his second Toreros team in a far different manner than his first, a roster of fifth-year senior transfers assembled in the weeks after he was hired two Aprils ago. Six ran out of eligibility, several others left, and Lavin had to do it all over again for Year 2.

This time, he went young.

Like, nine freshmen young.

“It’s joyful, high energy,” Lavin said last month at West Coast Conference media day in Las Vegas. “(There are) stretches where I’ve had to exhibit some patience but at the same time also push them because we have to accelerate the learning curve if we’re going to have the season we aspire to. But the camaraderie, the chemistry, is impressive.”

It’s a bold play in the brave, new world of college basketball, where relaxed transfer regulations combined with NIL payouts have fueled a sort of free agency previously unseen or unimagined. Teams are getting old and staying old; across town, SDSU rode a nine-man rotation of juniors, seniors, fifth-year seniors and a sixth-year senior to the Final Four last season.

The Toreros are going in the opposite direction.

“We’re having fun with it,” Lavin said, “re-framing it as an opportunity to be the disruptors and go against the trend by using our youth to our advantage. They have an exuberance that’s contagious.”

He also offers this caveat: “We’ll learn more as we play games that count and going on the road to some tough environments.”

The opening two games of the WCC season: No. 23 Saint Mary’s on Jan. 4 and No. 11 Gonzaga on Jan. 6

Seventy-five percent of the points has departed from an 11-20 team that finished ninth in what was then a 10-team WCC, including the five leading scorers — four seniors plus Weber State transfer Sigu Sisoho Jawara, who returned to Spain and turned pro. Seventy-eight percent of the rebounding is gone, too.

The top returning scorer is junior Wayne McKinney III, an athletic 6-foot guard from Coronado High School who averaged 7.4 points per game last year. The top returning rebounder is 6-10 junior Steven Jamerson II, at 2.9 per game.

There are two freshmen who signed letters of intent during the fall period last November and seven more added in the spring. The rest of the roster consists of two sophomores, five juniors and two seniors — both of whom have an extra year of eligibility from COVID. The only transfer is PJ Hayes from Division II Black Hills State in Spearfish, S.D.

That made it easy for coaches voting in the preseason WCC poll: They picked the Toreros to finish last.

“It was expected,” McKinney said. “It gives us an opportunity to show everybody what we can really do. I know people around USD or around the conference are going to believe, ‘Oh, USD basketball is not to the point where they need to be.’

“This young class and the ability that they’ve shown us and the camaraderie we’ve had, I believe we’re going to shock a lot of people.”

David Simon (14) goes up for a shot during an Oct. 14 scrimmage on campus.

(Meg McLaughlin/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

And it’s not like the transfer approach exactly worked. The Toreros started strong, opening 4-1 with the lone loss coming in overtime against eventual NCAA Tournament team Utah State. They then gradually slipped into mediocrity and eventual irrelevance.

USD closed the season with losses in six straight and eight of nine games. The final three defeats came by 25, 18 and 18 points.

The Toreros started the season ranked 139^th in the Kenpom.com metric … and finished 224^th. They allowed opponents to shoot 40.8 percent behind the arc, worst among 363 Division I programs.

They ranked 19^th nationally in Division I experience. This year, they’ll be at the opposite end of the spectrum.

“Last year we had a lot of seniors and we didn’t get the results that we would have preferred,” Lavin said. “Being hired late, we got a player from Stanford, a player from Lehigh, a player from Oregon. But the combination of new staff and returning players who weren’t recruited by me or hadn’t played for me yet, and then the players we brought in late who I didn’t know and hadn’t played for me, it led to the kind of season we had.

“Now we have this opportunity for 18 months to be evaluating the 2023 (high school) class. In some ways, this is our beginning with 13 underclassmen and our future, the foundation, is being built.”

Lavin has had to exhibit patience in practice. The question is whether the university will as well, now that the man who hired him, Bill McGillis, is out as athletic director amid a football hazing scandal.

The two early signings come with some recruiting hype, both three-star prospects by 247Sports.com: 6-foot-7 Kevin Patton Jr. from Rancho Christian High School in Temecula and 6-9 Jimmy Oladokun Jr. from basketball powerhouse Sierra Canyon High School in Chatsworth. There’s also 6-7 Keyon Kensie from Taft High School in Los Angeles and a trio of foreigners: 6-10 Santiago Trouet from Argentina, 6-6 Dragos Lungu from Romania and 6-11 David Simon from Canada.

If nothing else, Lavin collected size and length. The plan is to press, running fresh bodies in and out, hoping their long arms deflect enough passes to mask growing pains elsewhere.

Lavin says he went young for a few reasons. One was the disappointment of last season. Another is to zig when others are zagging, finding value in the forgotten prep recruiting realm with so many programs salivating over proven products from the transfer portal, preferring the known to the unknown.

“Having enough time to evaluate the high school prospects and the number of those prospects who surprised me that they were available,” Lavin said. “It was, hey, we can really help ourselves this year and moving forward by going out and bringing in a big class that we can develop and mold and grow with.”

There are inherent risks, of course. If Patton, Oladokun or any of the other youngsters blossom, there’s the ever-present temptation of jumping to a higher profile program that plays in a packed arena and can dangle six-figure NIL. UCSD, which has also skewed toward building through high school recruits, has lost a key player to the transfer portal in each of the last four years.

University of San Diego’s Bendji Pierre (5) and teammates box out for the rebound during a scrimmage at Jenny Craig Pavilion.

(Meg McLaughlin/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Tritons guard Roddie Anderson III led Big West freshman in scoring last season at 15.8 points. He’s now at Boise State.

But USD may not have much choice. The school, Lavin concedes, is not currently equipped to compete in the ruthless world of NIL, and maybe shouldn’t try.

“When you look at USD’s culture, the NIL approach is counter to the fabric and the history of (the university),” Lavin said. “Because it’s a strong academic school, you also have to be mindful that you’re bringing in the students that are prepared. (President) Jim Harris would be kind of older-school in terms of values and how college sports play a part in the broader curriculum of the university.

“There’s also an openness that, if it makes sense, let’s be strategic in bringing in a good fit from the transfer market. But to just do a turnstile every year where you’re bringing 10 in, 10 out, 10 in, I don’t think that’s what the university has in mind.

“And personally, it wouldn’t be much of a joy to coach, either.”