VISTA — Three days a week, two tall men carpool from North County to downtown San Diego, each at a different point in their basketball journey — neither at a school they likely imagined themselves at.
The slightly shorter and much older of the two, Rusty Smith of Carlsbad, is a Hall of Fame coach with more than 300 wins over 18 years at College of the Sequoias, now serving as an assistant at San Diego City College under head coach Mitch Charlens.
The loftier, younger Cyprian Hyde of Oceanside is a 6-foot-11 forward who stumbled through two seasons at the Division I level — first at the University of Portland, then at Virginia Military Institute — before enrolling at City College this past summer to try to resurrect his career.
“The most unexpected positive [of City College] has been Rusty Smith,” said Daniel Hyde, Cyprian’s father and pastor at Oceanside United Reformed Church. “It’s been a huge blessing having a coach who talks to him daily, helps with mental stuff, and talks about recruiting. Everyone there loves Cyprian, and he loves the coaches and his teammates. Mostly, it’s about him having fun and regaining his fire, passion, and love for the game.”
“Working with Coach Mitch and Coach Rusty, I’ve gotten so much better,” Cyprian Hyde said, minutes after an individual workout with Smith, just before joining the full team for practice at Harry West Gymnasium. “They’ve pushed me. It’s been awesome.”
“We run this like a DI program,” said Charlens, who has won 400 games over two decades at City College. “He’ll get recruited from here because now people will see he’s tougher and being coached. I don’t know what attention he was getting before — redshirts and walk-ons don’t always get this level of coaching. This might be the first time in his college career he’s coached every second, every play of practice.”
Hyde, a 2023 Vista High graduate, earned All-North County Coastal First Team honors as a senior after leading his team to the second round of the CIF San Diego Section Division II championships. He redshirted his first season at Portland, then played sparingly as a sophomore transfer at VMI, totaling 20 points in 12 games.
“Things didn’t work out; it was a bummer,” Cyprian Hyde said. “But I’m excited to be here.”
According to Daniel Hyde, Cyprian’s college career stalled at Portland, where the coach, under pressure to win immediately, told him to transfer, and again at VMI, where illness and academic struggles left him without the playing time or support he had initially expected.
“He’s just happy to be around coaches and a team that believes in him,” Daniel Hyde said. “Part of him doing this is regaining his love of the game.”
The Knights, 5-2 through their first seven games, opened the season Nov. 1 with a 90-88 overtime win at home against East Los Angeles. In his first college start, Hyde led City College with 27 points on 11-of-13 shooting.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s Division I or JUCO,” Cyprian Hyde said. “I took it like it was my last opportunity; my last chance to play. My emotions were off the wall. I was stoked to play. The energy was through the roof.”
“We don’t win that game without him taking over,” Charlens said.
On the season, Hyde is averaging more than 11 points per game while shooting over 50% from the floor.
“At the JUCO level, you don’t get many DI bounce-backs, let alone 7-foot ones,” City College guard Andrew Azebeokhai said. “He really makes the game easy for all of us. When the offense gets stagnant, we can get him a post touch, and we can rely on him to score nine times out of 10.”
Hyde isn’t Charlens’ first DI reclamation project; he sees parallels with 6-foot-8 forward Alex Crawford, who came through City College after leaving Stetson College in Florida and has since rebounded at the University of Rhode Island.
“Every year we have kids who come here under-recruited, or had no scholarship opportunities, or went somewhere and weren’t given a chance,” Charlens said. “[Crawford] is making $400,000 in NIL money and starting every game. So many of these kids just need the opportunity to play. Cyprian just needs game reps.”
Hyde said improving his physicality is key to getting back to the DI level.
“I want to continue to be more physical,” he said. “My post game has gotten so much better. I need to keep working on that and on defense.”
Dad wants the next coach to care.
“We want him to find a coach who truly wants him,” Daniel Hyde said. “We thought we had that a couple of times, but the best opportunity for Cyprian is going to be with a coach who wants him for two years.”
