By Palmer Johnson
Transfer guard Jesse Zarzuela out of Central Michigan will be visiting Mason on Wednesday, April 19th.
Jesse Zarzuela is a 6’3 grad transfer combo guard who has one year of eligibility.
🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨 https://t.co/Cug3atUgTc
— GMU Giant Killer (@GMUGiantKiller) April 17, 2023
Zarzuela has had a pretty interesting path leading up to this season. He was a 3 star out of Houston and started his college career at UTEP, redshirting his freshman season.
Then he went to Navarro College, a community college in Texas, for his redshirt freshman season.
Jesse then went to another community college, Missouri State University-West Plains, for his redshirt sophomore season.
After this season, he moved back up to D1 basketball and played for Coppin State for his redshirt junior season where he averaged 14.7 points per game. Note, he wore 50 while at Coppin State, which takes a lot of guts to wear as a guard.
For his redshirt senior season, Zarzuela transferred to Central Michigan and had his best season yet.
In the 2022-23 season, Jesse averaged 16.3 points on 2.8 rebounds, and 2.7 assists on 39.9% shooting from the field and 35.6% from three while hitting 82.8% of his free throws. He played 17 games, starting seven of them.
I think that him coming off the bench despite putting up starting numbers shows that he is willing to do what it takes for his team to win.
Zarzuela was putting up pretty decent numbers but got injured in late January and did not return for the rest of the season.
Zarzuela can create his own shot, but he is more effective when schemed open and can set up for his shot. He can be crafty inside and can leave bigger, slower defenders looking for a map.
I could see Zarzuela being either a starter or a great bench piece that is brought in when the offense needs a spark.
Let’s hope we see him in a Mason uniform next season.
