On March 8, 2021, Jose Perez dropped 21 points with five assists and four steals for Manhattan in a loss to Rider in the first round of the MAAC Tournament.
That ended up being the last game action for Perez across a whopping 975 days, a time period where he entered the transfer portal following his coach’s sudden firing, landed at West Virginia, was deemed ineligible for the 2022-23 season, remained with the Mountaineers after coach Bob Huggins was let go, and then was back in the portal late this offseason after an academic issue ended his tenure at West Virginia before he was ever even able to play a game.
Perez’s saga is among the strangest in recent memory, which hits many of college athletics’ biggest hot button issues: NCAA overstepping, transfer portal limits, academic issues, and coach misbehavior.
Fortunately for Perez, he was able to once again enter the transfer portal very late in the offseason and landed with Bobby Hurley and the Arizona State Sun Devils, who needed insurance in the guard room in case LSU two-time transfer Adam Miller was denied eligibility for the 2023-24 season.
(As of this writing, Miller has not been cleared by the NCAA to play at Arizona State this year.)
The 6’5 senior guard from the Bronx is just happy to be back on the hardwood, rather than the sidelines, and he’s provided exactly what Arizona State wanted from him: averaging 13.2 points, 5.0 rebounds, and 3.2 assists in nine games, playing about 33 minutes per night and shooting 48.5% on two pointers and 33.3% from beyond the arc.
“It’s fun to be back,” Perez said last week after dropping a season-high 24 points at home against Sam Houston. “Just trying to stack wins and get to the NCAA Tournament again.”
Perez has topped 20 points already in three of his nine games with the Sun Devils, and while the program is off to a rocky start – with a 6-3 record after a loss to San Diego – it would be much worse if Perez wasn’t in the picture.
More importantly, Perez gets to finish out his collegiate career on a high note after spending 18 months frustratingly waiting for the NCAA to let him get back onto the floor and do what he loves.
Arizona State will host TCU on Saturday, December 16 at 10:00 PM ET on ESPNU, followed by Northwestern four days later on December 20 at 8:30 PM ET on ESPN2.