The latest brick in San Diego State’s basketball roster rebuild comes from the northwest corner of a Mediterranean island with a picturesque coastline and history that dates to the Neolithic era.
Luca Vincini ended his season Sunday with pro club Dinamo Sassari on the Italian island of Sardinia and posted a heartfelt message to fans without mentioning his next destination.
On Tuesday, it was revealed: The 6-foot-9 forward who has been a pro for six years and was called up to Italy’s senior national team last fall is an Aztec now.
“It’s never easy to write farewell messages, especially for a place that was like home to me and that welcomed me from day one,” Vincini posted in Italian after playing 33 minutes in his final game with Sassari. “The affection and bonds I have created with people, both around the team and outside, is something I will always carry in my heart and never forget.
“Now our paths are divided, with the hope that it will be a goodbye and not a farewell. Thanks for everything.”
The 22-year-old Vincini becomes SDSU’s third European pro, joining Croatian wing Luka Skoric from KK Cibona and Italian guard David Torresani from Nutribullet Treviso.
Treviso and Sassari both played in Italy’s top division this season, but Torresani, who is two years younger, doesn’t know Vincini — only knows of him.
“I’m happy another Italian is coming to San Diego,” Torresani said. “He’s for sure experienced, because he was playing pro basketball since he was 17. Of course, he has size and he could fit in great in a system like this. He’s smart, so he can figure it out.”
College basketball’s foreign invasion is new to the Aztecs but not to the West Coast. Over the past three seasons, nine of the top 10 teams with the most foreign-born players were in the West, including future Pac-12 brethren Oregon State and Washington State at 11 each.
“They’re playing in the top European leagues, they’re European professionals, but for whatever reason they’re allowed to play college basketball,” Brian Dutcher told fans at the SDSU Coaches Caravan on Monday night in Rancho Penasquitos. “But if you look what Illinois had on their team this year, it basically was a European pro team. Or you look at Arizona, how many internationals did they have in the starting lineup?
“Everybody has internationals. The key is getting good ones, and that’s what I hope we’ve done.”
With England’s Latrell Davis and South Sudan’s Thokbor Majak, that gives the Aztecs five foreign-born players on the 2026-27 roster, and a sixth, forward Tae Simmons, who was born in the States but spent most of his childhood in France.
Vincini helps fill the most glaring void after four of the five bigs from last season’s rotation either ran out of eligibility or ran out of town via the transfer portal: 6-8 Jeremiah Oden (senior), 7-0 Magoon Gwath (DePaul), 6-7 Pharaoh Compton (Oregon) and 6-9 Miles Heide (Virginia Tech).
He fits a similar profile to other European players that Dutcher has pursued: a promising young star who has modest statistics because he comes off the bench on a veteran team in a high-level professional league. Vincini was the only member of Sassari’s rotation under 27 years old, but was respected enough that he was named vice captain.
He averaged 6.5 points and 3.7 rebounds in 18.8 minutes per game for Sassari, which finished last in the 15-team Serie A and was relegated. That usually means most players leave for other clubs as it retools the roster with a smaller payroll and exposure of the second division.
“He really does a good job sprinting to screens, he rolls hard, he’s got pretty good hands, he finishes around the basket, he’s a very good passer, he really connects the offense,” Dutcher said. “I just think he’s a valuable piece to what we have going now.
“And he’s older. He’s been a pro and been on the national team. I watched some clips of him from when he was younger going against (San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembayama), so he’s played on the international scene for a long time.”
Vincini was born in Turin, turned pro at 17 and spent two years with Italian second-division club Biella, then two with second-division Juvi Cremona before jumping to Sassari in the Serie A in 2024-25.
He has represented Italy on multiple youth national teams and was one of the youngest call-ups to the senior team in November for games against Iceland and Lithuania. He played only a few minutes, but it was a positive sign that he’s on the radar of a national team that regularly ranks among the best in Europe.
“When (national coach Luca) Bianchi called me to tell me the news,” Vincini told Italian media, “I literally jumped around the house. … The blue jersey, the anthem — indescribable emotions that I hope to experience again.”
That gives Dutcher 11 players on his rebuilt roster: four returnees, three from the transfer portal, three from Europe plus incoming freshman Zach White. Nine of last season’s 11-man rotation is gone, meaning most (and probably all) of the additions figure to play a major role.
Dutcher said he hopes to add another perimeter player from the transfer portal “by the end of the week.”
The staff now turns it attention to future high school prospects, with major prep recruiting events over the next few weekends. The team begins practice in earnest during the second session of summer school in early July.
“You can put your head in the sand and say, ‘I don’t like what it is,’” Dutcher said. “It is what it is, so get up and go to work the next day. That what (football coach Sean) Lewis does, that’s what I do. There’s no sense dwelling over what’s not coming back. The only thing we can control is what’s coming in, and we’re bringing good pieces in.”