San Diego State’s basketball team started the day with no available scholarships for next season. Now it has two.

First, junior guard Malachi Flynn announced he is forgoing his senior season and entering the NBA Draft. That was expected.

A bigger surprise came a few hours later, when 6-foot-10 sophomore Joel Mensah put his name in the NCAA transfer portal, leaving the Aztecs with only one player taller than 6-foot-7 (and he missed half the season with a major medical condition). Mensah would sit one season, then have two to play.

SDSU had been the only Mountain West team this spring without a men’s basketball player in the transfer portal, although players are allowed to withdraw their names and return to their current schools.


“We want to thank Joel for his contribution to Aztecs basketball,” coach Brian Dutcher said. “We wish him well in his academic and athletic future.”

Mensah, who is visiting friends in Michigan, was unavailable for comment.

Yet another scholarship could conceivably open if incoming freshman Che Evans Jr. forgoes college for the pros. A web report by Adam Zagoria, citing an unidentified source, said the G League and a pro team in Spain had “reached out” to the 6-7 wing originally from Baltimore.

The G League signed top prep prospects Jalen Green and Isaiah Todd to contracts worth as much as $500,000 with plans for a developmental team next season of would-be college freshmen. What’s curious about the Evans report, though, is he has played in one game — 10 points in the season finale for Neumann-Goretti Catholic High in Philadelphia — over the past 11 months with a severe leg injury.


A source close to Evans said he still intends to enroll at SDSU.

Mensah came to SDSU as part of four-player freshman class, all with African heritage. Nathan Mensah and Aguek Arop remain, although both have had injury-plagued careers. Ed Chang transferred out last year and spent the season at a junior college in Salt Lake City. Now Joel Mensah is likely gone, too.

Mensah — who like Nathan is from Ghana and shares a common last name but isn’t related — was considered a long-term project, as many post players are, and had yet to develop into a regular member of the rotation, albeit on a team that went 30-2 and finished the season No. 6 in both major polls. He appeared in 21 of 32 games last season, averaging 1.9 points in 6.5 minutes.

He had an accurate mid-range shot and relentless motor that allowed him to grab offensive rebounds, scrap for loose balls and beat his man downcourt. But he struggled with the nuances of SDSU’s sophisticated defensive schemes, which, under Dutcher, is the primary reason a player doesn’t get on the court.


He scored eight points on 4-of-4 shooting on New Year’s Day against Fresno State, the first of what would be 19 games without starting center Nathan Mensah for what the Union-Tribune reported was a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot in the lungs.

That was the last time he would take a shot or free throw for SDSU.

His minutes dwindled, 40 for the rest of the season (with no points, five rebounds and the only assist of his career), partly because of a sprained ankle, mostly because Matt Mitchell was inserted into the starting lineup and Yanni Wetzell shifted to the 5 spot. By the end of February, the 6-6 Arop was the primary backup for Wetzell. Mensah did not play in the final four regular-season games or the three in the Mountain West tournament.

A move into the transfer portal seemed a possibility if the Aztecs had landed either of the two bigs they were pursuing: 6-10 Long Beach State freshman Joshua Morgan and 7-3 Loyola Marymount grad transfer Mattias Markusson.


But Morgan picked USC and Markusson opted to stay at LMU under new coach Stan Johnson, solidifying Joel Mensah’s roster spot. Nathan Mensah has yet to be cleared for contact (although he is expected to in June). And Arop had his shoulder repaired last week, the second straight April he has undergone surgery.

The other factor is where Joel Mensah might go. The NCAA has decreed a recruiting “dead period” through the end of May, meaning coaches can’t travel to see prospective players and players can’t take official or unofficial campus visits. They essentially must pick a school based on texts, phone calls and pictures on the Internet.

Losing Mensah plus two transfer targets doesn’t necessarily mean the Aztecs will have an undersized roster next season. With two scholarships open and the word out that the reigning Mountain West champion is actively looking for bigs, there already have been murmurs of players not yet in the portal entering in the near future.

There also is the game-changer that could come May 20, when the NCAA’s Division I Council is expected to vote on a proposal to grant basketball and football players a free, one-time transfer without having to sit out a year. It is expected to pass, and some think it will be implemented for the 2020-21 season, which could entice hundreds more players to enter the portal.


“If the NCAA decides to make transfers immediately eligible,” Dutcher said, “it will be good to have scholarships available. But we’ll be very selective.”