Sports News Southwest

Yuma, Arizona - San Diego State men’s basketball head coach Steve Fisher announced the signing of Mehdi Cheriet to a National Letter of Intent on Friday. Cheriet, a 6-9, 220-pound forward who is currently ranked No. 17 on jucojunction.com’s Top 200, will join the team in 2008-09 as a junior and have two years of eligibility remaining.

“We are very excited about the addition of Mehdi for the ’08-09 season,” Fisher said. “He is the consummate European player who has the ability to play outside and inside. He will be a wonderful addition both as a student and a basketball player. We are very excited to have him.”

A native of Tarare, France, Cheriet is currently attending Arizona Western College (AWC) in Yuma, Ariz., where he helped the Matadors to their third straight JUCO Region I championship last year and an appearance in the NJCAA district finals where they lost to Kelvin Davis’ College of Southern Idaho team. Arizona Western finished the 2006-07 season with a 27-6 overall record.

Individually, Cheriet was the lone freshman in the starting lineup and came on strong late as he scored in double figures in 11 of the final 14 games. Included during that stretch was a contest where he went for a season-high 32 points and added nine rebounds. He finished his first season averaging 11 points per game and 5.3 rebounds to go along with a shooting percentage of 53.6 percent.

This past summer, Cheriet returned to France to play for the French under-20 national team that played in the European Basketball Championships.

Following a solid first year at Arizona Western, Cheriet was named an NJCAA Division I preseason honorable mention All-American earlier this month. AWC, meanwhile, enters 2007-08 ranked No. 17 in the preseason NJCAA poll.

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