“NBA prospect,” “Pre-season All Mountain West,” “Breakout year,” “Two-way star,” were the phrases linked to San Diego State guard Reese Waters just months before the 2024-2025 season. The attention was at an all time high, but following a scan of his foot, the tone shifted.

To kick off the pre-season, Waters was diagnosed with a stress fracture and immediately placed in a walking boot, with a six to eight week time frame for his return to the court. Before Aztec fans knew it, six weeks passed… Then eight… With number 14 yet to suit up and little to no public comments released regarding his progression.

The silence lasted until mid-February, when Waters was declared unable to return, putting his professional dreams on hold.

“After the first month when I got my scan, to be honest with you, I kind of went into it knowing that it wasn’t healed yet, because I was still feeling pain,” Waters said. “I was upset, I cried, but after I left the doctor’s office and I talked to my family and my loved ones, I was just kind of like, this is what it is, I gotta heal and get better.”

The news came as a surprise to the Scarlet and Black faithful, but for those close to the situation, they had come face to face with this reality long before the doctors made it official.

“I think I realized when he had the determination that there was a hairline fracture, I knew. I said this is going to be it,” said Pam Waters, Reese’s mother. “My biggest concern was, how will Reese react to that? But I think I knew in my heart. I knew when he said what the injury was, I think I knew he was going to be out for the season.”

With the SDSU fans rushing to the internet, discussing the effects the injury has on the 2024-2025 team and their season, Reese was soul searching behind the scenes the past four months, tackling his biggest passion being temporarily stripped away in an instant.

“It was tough just going home, I didn’t have any connection with anybody, because everybody was playing. So I didn’t really go to anybody to talk about my problems. All my issues that I had, I really only talked to God about it,” Waters said. “There were times where I went home and maybe I was crying for an hour or two, or times where I was just in my room, not even watching TV, just staring at the ceiling, not being able to sleep.”

The love for basketball began at a young age for Reese, picking up his first basketball in Long Beach at the age of three years old, and for Reese’s father and trainer, Luther, the gifted player SDSU fans know and appreciate now showed flashes early. 

“I definitely saw something in him that I don’t think he saw in himself. He was a very quiet, shy young man. Basketball was the one space he could lower his filter and express himself,” Luther said.

While a young Reese grew his game, beginning to gain confidence, a trip to Portland planted the seed in his mind that grew into a nationally ranked high school prospect.

“My eighth grade year, we went to Portland, and I forgot who the player was, but they were really good in college. And they were older than us, like we were playing an older team, the refs were bad, we were down 20, and I ended with 45,” Reese said. “That was my moment where now I don’t complain about stuff not going my way, because I was like, ‘If we lose this, we’re going back home,’ and I ended up hitting the game winner.”

Reese took the momentum from Portland into high school and never looked back. When he reached the end of his senior year at St. Bernard High School, he was ranked the no. 77 recruit in the nation and the no. 11 ranked shooting guard. 

“Reese was recruited by every school in North America outside of Duke, every school, and that was based on his competitive fight and his fire,” Luther said.

Following a heavy recruitment process, Reese stayed close to home, taking his talents to the University of Southern California. He struggled, however, to find himself on campus, feeling as though he was spiritually at war with himself, “not really knowing what I believed in,” he said, because he’d grown up in a Christian household. “You get to college, you get exposed to different beliefs and everybody’s ideas, and you start trying to find your own identity.”

As time passed, Reese came to the conclusion that his Christian upbringing was the path he wanted to stay on, “talking to Him throughout my day, talking to Him like right now, just being able to pray and just having somebody to lean on that’s always gonna be there no matter what 1,000% is everything,” he said.

This decision of faith is on display in his day to day life, with a “Child of God” tattoo across his left hand, and a cross pendant chain around his neck.

“I definitely think my faith helps with my confidence, because there’s nothing that could make me fold or break me, especially having belief in Jesus Christ, I just have the ultimate level of confidence,” he said.

Following the three years Reese spent at USC, he transferred to San Diego State, opting for comfortability and looking to find his joy in basketball again.  

“He’s learned, especially since moving down to SDSU, he’s found the joy of competing again that I believe at one point he lost, because at his previous destination, it was very business oriented so the human aspect of how young men develop and how they’re cultivated, wasn’t part of the equation,” said Luther.

As he packed his bags and made the move down the I-5 to San Diego, Reese kept his support group at the forefront, leaning on those who have seen him grow as a player and man. 

“Everybody in our close knit group is on a journey,” said Jelany White, Reese’s strength trainer and close friend. “We’re all constantly talking, watching film, figuring out ways to get better not just as basketball players but as men.”

The beginning of Reese’s tenure at the Mesa was an exciting one, scoring double digit points in the first five games before a matchup against the University of California in the SoCal showcase. Reese arrived on the scene, putting up a career-high 24 points on the Golden Bears en route to him winning the SoCal Showcase Most valuable Player award. 

For Reese’s father, who had exclusively trained him from the moment he touched a basketball, the game felt like a culmination of his son’s hard work.

“After the game, he was named tournament MVP for the showcase, and he came over and he just gave me a big hug. It was an emotional moment, because I think it was a capstone from where we’ve been to where we are, and he just wanted to say, thank you,” Luther said. 

Reese’s mother was in the crowd for her son’s breakout game as well, sitting with Reese’s sister, the moment was a family affair. 

“I looked at that as he finally got the recognition for all of that work that he’s put in, and that really meant a lot to him. I think it was really wonderful that it happened in front of that crowd. I mean, everyone was screaming, MVP, he really and truly appreciated that moment,” Pam said. 

Following the game against Cal, Reese battled through minor injuries, ending the year on an up and down swing of games and finishing as the team’s second leading scorer. The conference recognized the talent and production shown throughout the course of the 2023-2024 campaign, voting Reese as the lone Aztec in the 2024-2025 pre-season all-Mountain West team.

This was until another setback, with the original news of a stress fracture certainly coming as a disappointment, Reese still went into pre-season expecting to return after the six to eight week time frame and pick up where he left off. 

“Everybody thinks when you’re coming back after an injury, you gotta ease back into it. But for me, I’m like, yeah, that could be the case. Or I can come back and look the same as if I never got hurt. So I look at it that way. It’s more of a challenge that I’m willing to accept,” Reese commented on media day.

The challenge he was prepared for quickly unraveled into one the guard had never faced, sitting on the bench game after game watching as a fan for the first time in his life.

The frustration reached a peak for Waters on Jan. 11, when the Aztecs endured a 62-48 loss at New Mexico. In the midst of a back and forth slugfest in front of a sold out Lobos crowd, the injured guard felt handicapped in more ways than one.  

“When we played in New Mexico, I felt hopeless because I couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t try to help the team. It was just my voice,” he said. “I know how it is as a player, yeah, if somebody is talking, you’re gonna listen. But it’s different when you’re actually out there going through it with each other. I definitely felt helpless. But I tried to just not let anybody else know I was frustrated, pissed off or angry. I kept it to myself.”

In light of his frustrations, the messages from his parents echoed through his mind as a reminder of the role he needed to continue to serve for his team. 

“They were like, in some way, you got to turn this into a positive because, yeah, you’re not playing, but there’s people on the team that need you. You can’t just think about it all for yourself, because that’s selfish,” Reese said. “Let’s say basketball stopped right now, you’re gonna have to give your information back to somebody else to help them.”

While pouring his knowledge into his teammates, Reese was also pouring his time into recovery, training with a new fire lit under him. The undeniable work ethic didn’t come as a surprise for Jelany White, who has performed strength training with Reese since he was 14 years old.

“He looked up to Kobe [Bryant], so it’s almost like I’ve had to dial it back with him. It was at the point where I said ‘we don’t want to overwork.’ Early on, he overworked so much, because he just was so passionate about the sport,” White said. “He really, really loves basketball. He loves the process of the day to day work of it all.”

After long days of rehab and multiple practices, Reese reflected on as showing up mentally out of it, relying on his teammates to pick him up if he was checked out, the light was shining at the end of the tunnel. The light was flaming brighter than ever when Reese announced his return to SDSU for the 2025-2026 season. 

Days after the announcement, Reese provided a simple one sentence statement regarding his return, keeping it short and sweet and staying true to the old soul, short spoken player that Aztecs fans have become accustomed to.

“He has an old soul, but that’s because of how he came up. Myself and the older guys kind of raised him that way,” White said. “That’s just him, he’s a family guy, he loves to be around his people, he wants to take care of his people, he’s a deep thinker, he’s constantly reading. And what most people don’t know, he writes screenplays, scary films, movies, he’s just a different cat man and I can appreciate that because he’s true to Reese.”

Despite the limited initial comment from Reese, the news bolstered the expectations, as guard Wayne McKinney III and center Jared Coleman-Jones are the lone two rotational pieces with no eligibility remaining following the season.

Reese is well aware of the potential lineup taking the floor at Viejas Arena next season, tempering his expectations while maintaining some excitement on what might be a loaded SDSU roster come November.

“I talk about it with, really, with all of them, but mostly like [Miles] Byrd, Nick [Boyd] and Magoon [Gwath], we talk about it all the time,” Reese said. Obviously, I don’t know what everybody’s going to do, because Goon and Byrd could potentially go to the NBA, But the plan is for everybody to come back. We definitely think if everybody comes back, we could win a national championship.”

If a national championship is in the Scarlet and Black’s future, a heavy dose of that will rely on Reese’s play. But for now, his parents are just excited to see their boy do what he loves again.

“He’s going to play with a competitive fire that nobody has seen throughout his collegiate years,” said Luther. “I think that joy and that passion and that fire that burns inside is going to be unleashed.”

Reese’s mother couldn’t contain her excitement when imagining her son throwing on a number 14 jersey, lacing up the shoes and letting out the four months of frustration on the court.

“I just cannot wait. I think this year is going to be amazing, and I’m so proud of Reese. It definitely has been a journey. He’s hung in there, and I just can’t wait to see what happens next,” Pam said. “If he plays with the joy and passion he once did, get your popcorn ready, it’s going to be a show.”

The Aztecs will head to Vegas for the Mountain West championship tournament in a week, with Reese continuing to be a great leader and voice for those who are suiting up. But for Reese, November can’t come soon enough.

“To be honest with you, I dream about it all the time. There’s one time I was in class, I dozed off a little bit. I don’t know how long I was asleep for, because the dream felt like it was a whole game, but yeah I think about it a lot, I can’t wait,” Reese said.