May 14, 2008
SAN DIEGO -
SDSU News Conference
Aztec Athletics Center
SDSU Men's Basketball Head Coach Steve Fisher
Opening statement:
"We have had a number of good news items for San Diego State basketball, most recently the signing of Tim lsland, a junior college player, who has signed with San Diego State. He is a very good perimeter player. He brings an ingredient that we need; he can shoot the basketball. So we are really excited about adding Tim to the program next year. Another piece of good news, I met this morning with Lorrenzo Wade. I say good news, good news for the Aztecs. After careful investigating between the two of us, he has decided to withdraw his name immediately from the potential NBA Draft list and is now making it official what we were thinking might happen that he will be back at San Diego State for his senior year. So we are excited about that. Lorrenzo is excited about it and we are looking forward to a great summer with all of them and moving into next season."
On if SDSU will sign other players:
"We are still recruiting so we are hopeful that we could possibly sign another player before the end of May. (It's) not a guarantee, but if we could get the right one we would sign one more."
On Matt Thomas:
"We are also encouraged that we are moving forward with the fifth year for Matt Thomas, which you would think would be a no-brainer, but it never is. I have been told that they are pretty optimistic that Matt will secure that fifth year of eligibility."
On Lorrenzo Wade's decision to withdraw:
"If you are a first-round draft pick, you have to consider going. After all the dialogue that he had, we had with various people, he is of the opinion that he is not going to be a first-round draft pick. It would be, rather than a crap shoot, in his best interest to return for his senior year, graduate, he is ahead of the curve for graduation, play his senior year, build on the resume he has and help us take a big step forward with the team success. If all of those things fall into place, he will be much more marketable, so to speak, higher on the food chain, a year from now than he is right now."
On Kyle Spain:
"Kyle Spain is finishing finals this week like all of our players. He is enrolled in both sessions of summer school. A final decision will be made, as I have repeatedly said, probably as we prepare to start the fall. The potential for him to return is there. He has not been added back to the roster as a player yet. He is on scholarship and will be here through the summer working on his degree."
On Tim Island:
"We had watched him and talked to him last summer about walking on and he did not want to do that so he went to junior college and had a very good year. We watched him at all of these April events that we go to and the more we watched we asked, `Why haven't we recruited him harder?' So we chose to get into the recruiting battle with some other schools and wound up getting him to stay home."