6\u00bd months after surgery<\/a> to repair the posterior cruciate ligament in his right knee.<\/p>\nDixon-Waters should be available Sunday afternoon against Idaho State, likely with protective goggles. Gwath\u2019s most logical return is the following game, Nov. 18 against Troy, although Dutcher left open the slight possibility that he could make a cameo appearance Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf he has a couple good days of practice, the temptation will be to throw him out there for a couple minutes (Sunday) to give him a few game minutes,\u201d Dutcher said. \u201cBut I\u2019ll have to see how he looks and talk to (athletic trainer Sergio Ibarra) and make sure we\u2019re all on the same page.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to rush him back. I know he\u2019s excited to get back. It\u2019s a balancing act.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are two courts at the JAM Center practice facility, and Gwath went back and forth between them Thursday, doing strength and fitness work on one, then participating in non-contact drills on the other.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat little he was out there today, he looks different,\u201d Dutcher said of the bulked-up Gwath. \u201cHe\u2019s a special player. But we\u2019ve got to do what\u2019s in his best interest.\u201d<\/p>\n
The real target is Nov. 24, when the Aztecs face No. 7 Michigan in the opener of the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas. The following day, they get Oregon.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he\u2019ll be ready to play, but he won\u2019t be ready to play at the level he will as the year goes on,\u201d Dutcher said. \u201cIt\u2019s just going to take time. And that\u2019s whether we\u2019re playing Michigan or we\u2019re playing games lesser than Michigan. That timeline is still going to be the timeline to getting his timing back and playing at the level we know he\u2019s going to play at a month from now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dixon-Waters also needs to regain game fitness, although not on the same scale as Gwath. He missed four practices with an illness before suffering a scratched cornea from an unknown source (one possible culprit is contact lenses).<\/p>\n
Corneal abrasions typically heal in a matter of days with the proper treatment but can be debilitating initially.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe doctors didn\u2019t feel he should play,\u201d Dutcher said. \u201cReese always wants to play. But I think as he went on, his vision wasn\u2019t good, he needed medical drops and now he\u2019s in goggles so he doesn\u2019t get poked. It was real. It wasn\u2019t like we could even let him play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Redshirting Davis<\/p>\n
Dutcher didn\u2019t play San Jose State transfer guard Latrell Davis on Tuesday and indicated afterward that he plans to redshirt him this season given the roster depth. He didn\u2019t rule out a change of heart, though, if he doesn\u2019t like the team\u2019s direction over the next few weeks.<\/p>\n
Davis, who has two years of eligibility remaining, seems OK with it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe clarity is hard,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019m going to be in one game or not. I\u2019m suited up. It could look to the fans like, oh, he\u2019s just not playing me, or this guy gets no minutes. It\u2019s kind of hard. But as long as I know what it is and Coach knows what it is, it\u2019s all good.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a team with depth, so playing against them every day and getting better at areas of my game that I need to improve, I take it as a blessing, honestly. It\u2019s a year I can get better, and the next two years I can shine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Food distribution<\/p>\n
During Wednesday\u2019s off day, Aztecs players helped distribute food at Hoover High School as part of Feeding San Diego\u2019s School Pantry Program that serves 500 families there bi-weekly.<\/p>\n
It is one of the community service events that is part of the MESA Foundation\u2019s NIL payouts to the team. Assistant coach JayDee Luster is a Hoover alum and a member of the school\u2019s athletic Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n
A year ago, the players were so moved by the event that they donated a portion of their NIL money to Feeding San Diego to combat hunger. This year, the MESA Foundation announced a \u201c3 for 3 to Feed\u201d campaign, with $3 donated for every made 3-pointer.<\/p>\n
The team also started a GoFundMe page to encourage community donations: https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/donate-to-support-feeding-san-diegos-mission.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Practice had been a bit a sloppy at times, but San Diego State coach Brian Dutcher had a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1327,181,74,76,75,305,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-41965","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-college-sports","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-san-diego","11":"tag-san-diego-headlines","12":"tag-san-diego-news","13":"tag-sdsu-aztecs","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}