Maybe it’s because his official visit started on his birthday that Jose Perez was already feeling good vibes when he arrived in Tempe. This is why, at the culmination of his trip, the 6-5 2510-pound West Virginia guard decided to end his recruitment and commit to the Sun Devils.
Perez is a graduate transfer who is immediately eligible this season and has one year of eligibility left. Since he will be enrolling in Arizona State’s academic Session B, he is poised to be eligible to suit up for the team’s season opener in Chicago on November 8 versus Mississippi State.
“I felt like it was a fit,” Perez admitted. “Coach Hurley and Coach were blowing my phone up to visit. It was cool that it was my birthday when I visited, but I committed because of basketball. With Bobby Hurley, I feel like Bobby; I know he will get me to where I want to be. He feels I could play any position 1-4. He believes in me and let me do what I do. People haven’t seen me play in two years. But he’s seen my practice film from this year and how I transformed my body and whatnot. So he’s ready to unleash a little beast.
“When I talked to the team on the visit, I felt like we were on the same page. I’m here to win. I’m not here to step on nobody’s toes. I just want to win a lot of games and get back to the promised land. And I know I have a lot to prove.
“I committed tonight (Sunday) night at dinner. Nobody knew. So we got to dinner, and I didn’t even tell Coach Hurley, and he was sitting next to me. I’m like, “Hey, coach. I’m gonna make that announcement. And he’s like, are you coming here? I said, check your phone in a little bit.’”
Yesterday, Perez celebrated his 25th birthday and has had quite the journey during his career. The guard who prepped at Putnam (Conn.) Science Academy signed out of high school with Gardner-Webb in 2018 and played there for two years before transferring to Marquette. After seeing very little playing time there, he transferred to Manhattan and played one year there, where he earned first Team All-MAAC honors in the 2021-22 season, averaging 18.9 ppg, 4.5 apg, and 3.2 rpg playing in 29 of 30 games.
When his head coach and mentor, Steve Masiello, was fired two weeks before the start of the season, he decided to transfer to West Virginia. Because he was denied immediate eligibility for the 2022-23 campaign, he sat out that season and earned his degree.
He had a public departure from the Mountaineers, which began when his second head coach during his career, Bob Huggins, resigned last June. Perez entered and exited the transfer portal. Yet after his return, despite already earning his degree, West Virginia insisted that he attend study hall and enroll in undergraduate courses. This was a vacation that led Perez to leave the team, this time for good.
“It’s been a journey,” Perez stated. “People don’t know that I’ve been in three spots back-to-back-to back, and coaches have been fired. So it’s not like my choice that I wanted to go to five different schools. Nobody believed me. They wanted to do their research and do a background check, and they saw that what I said was true.
“I can’t control the situation that I was in. But I’m grateful for it. I’m at Arizona State for the next seven months to help the team get into that dance (NCAA Tournament) because once you’re in that dance, anything can happen.
“I’m a playmaker and a scorer. I like to get people involved first, and I did average five assists. That’s what people don’t see; people just see and just see me averaging 19 points a game and whatnot. But at one point, I was leading the nation in assists. I’m down to 210 lbs. with a little burst of speed, too. I was talking to (current ASU guard) Jamiya Neal, and he said, ‘Come be with me and Frankie (Collins) in the backcourt and be a leader on the team.’ He said that I was what they were missing.”
ASU’s desire to try and fill their last scholarship spot with a player such as Perez was the fact that they didn’t expect the waiver for LSU guard transfer Adam Miller, who averaged 11.5 points last season, to be accepted by the NCAA and thus Miller who transferred to two schools but didn’t earn his degree yet, won’t be eligible until the 2024-25 season.
Perez canceled his upcoming visit to Ole Miss, and he was also recruited by Michigan and BYU.
“This is my last year in college, so people can’t be asking me no more, ‘How long has he been in college?’”, Perz laughed. “I do feel like I have been in college a little too long. A 25-year-old college player is super rare. But that’s all right. That’s the game we are in today. My journey is different from everybody else’s.
“I’ve always been a physical player and strong mentally. You know, like, I’ve always been one of those players who wanted to get coached hard. I’m not a player who can play for a coach who is laid back and quiet. I know Coach Hurley is a coach who I will run through a wall for. He has my back, and I got his back. That’s the type of person I need, and that’s the type of coach I want to play for.”
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