Sean Newman Jr. finished his senior season for the Culver City Centaurs in February 2020. He was 135 pounds, maybe 140 if he ate a couple cheeseburgers. He had no college offers.
Then the pandemic hit and shut down society, including spring basketball showcases for unsigned seniors.
“There was nobody recruiting him,” Fullerton College coach Perry Webster said. “I mean, nobody — not Division IIs, no junior colleges.”
“It was literally nothing,” Newman said.
So how, on Wednesday morning, did the 6-foot-1 point guard land at San Diego State with the keys to a high-octane machine that includes most of last season’s roster that reached the NCAA Tournament?
“I’ve always been overlooked my whole life,” said Newman, who will transfer to SDSU from Louisiana Tech. “I was a late bloomer. My whole life, even in middle school, I was always on the second team or the third team. I was never picked to be on the first team, ever.
“It just instilled a work ethic to just keep going, no matter what it looks like. … I’ve done all of this because I love the game so much. I wouldn’t even say it’s a chip on my shoulder. This is just what I love to do.”
Which, above all, is ing the basketball.
Newman finally got an offer from Fullerton College and spent three years there, the first wiped out by the pandemic, the second by a knee injury and the third ending with a 32-1 record and a state championship. From there, he went to Louisiana Tech of Conference USA, where last season he averaged 9.9 points and ranked third in Division I with 7.9 assists per game.
Newman has at least one season of eligibility remaining (from his medical redshirt in 2021-22) and likely a second from the recent NCAA decision, compelled by a court ruling, to not count junior college against your allotted four years of Division I competition.
The connection to SDSU is assistant coach Ryan Badrtalei, whose youth coach was Webster’s father and who recruited Newman while on UC Irvine’s staff. Badrtalei also knows Perry Webster well and trusts his talent evaluation.
Webster got a tip from another coach about Newman and began recruiting him via Zoom during the early stages of the pandemic.
“Look, I didn’t know how good he was,” Webster said. “But I’ll tell you, the first day we got back from COVID, we got on the baseball field. We still weren’t allowed to be indoors. We did a conditioning workout. Here are all these guys who had been out for a significant amount of time, and you’re worried about their shape. Sean just moved like a gazelle and when he got tired, he pushed through.
“I , just after that, I said to my assistants: ‘This kid is going to be special.’ Sure enough, he was.”
Newman doesn’t have a big, rugged frame and he’s not a lights-out 3-point marksman, but he compensates with speed, vision and a selfless approach that is becoming increasingly rare in a me-first generation of athletes.
“He cares strictly and only about winning,” said Webster, who reasons Fullerton would have won another state JC title had Newman not been hurt. “People gravitate towards him because he’s just warm-hearted, good-spirited kid. Those talented guys around him at San Diego State will really like playing with him, because he’ll always sacrifice himself for his teammates and that will reverberate amongst the team.
“He’s truly a -first guy.”
Coach Brian Dutcher talks about the importance of talent, but also the importance of fit.
The 2025-26 Aztecs roster that is starting to crystalize — Reese Waters, Miles Byrd, Magoon Gwath — needed a quarterback to get them the ball. And Newman had 245 assists in 31 games last season.
Only one player at SDSU has had more than 126 assists in the past decade, and that was 163 by Malachi Flynn in 2019-20. Tony Gwynn’s single-season school record is 221.
“I really find joy in ing,” Newman said. “I love getting my guys involved. I’m a servant, I would say.”
When Badrtalei put fellow assistant coach JayDee Luster, himself a -first point guard who shattered assist records, on the phone with Newman the first time, Luster dispensed with the introductions and cut straight to the point: “Have you ever driven a Lamborghini?”
After an awkward pause, Luster added: “Well, I’ve got the keys for you.”
He was talking about the roster, not NIL.
“That how our conversation started,” Newman said. “I was pretty fired up.”
Like Gwath, who was courted by Kentucky and Michigan before opting to return to SDSU should he not turn pro, Newman received offers for more money to play elsewhere. And like Gwath, he chose culture over cash.
“I’m not going to lie,” Newman said. “The money kind of got into my head a little bit. But I’ve never been a person moved by money. Everything that has got me where I am, I didn’t get there because of money or because I did it for money. It was because of my ion for the game, my love for it, just the morals and foundations I have, the way I was raised.”
A conversation with Louisiana Tech coach Talvin Hester cemented that sentiment.
“I sat down with him in his office,” Newman said. “He told me; ‘You cannot miss money that you’ve never had. A million dollars or $800,000 or whatever it is, you can’t miss that money because you’ve never had it.’ I really thought about that and was like, ‘You’re right.’
“The opportunity and the place I’m going to be at and the culture I’m walking into, that’s far greater than money. There are a lot of people who have a ton of money and are depressed and sad, and I didn’t want to be one of those guys. I wanted to go somewhere I could win.”
You can almost feel Webster smiling through the phone.
“Sean could have held out and tried to get more money,” Webster said, “but I think Sean recognized that, hey, this is the best fit. He left some money on the table in order to go to a place he wants to be. I’m proud of him. I’m proud of the decision he made.”
