SBCC Star Forward Aidan Mandel Stays Local, Signs with Westmont
By Jimmy Friery
Vaqueros star forward Aidan Mandel has announced his commitment to continue his academic and basketball career at Westmont College. The decorated local standout moves on, but will stay close to home.
"I've really enjoyed my time at SBCC," Mandel said. "I've gotten way better as a student, basketball player, and as a person."
"He's just an outstanding guy, represents the town of Santa Barbara well, and gets to continue to do that over at Westmont," SBCC head coach Devin Engebretsen said. "He always worked extremely hard, never argued—highly coachable young man."
Playing his high school ball at San Marcos, Mandel was the leader of an undefeated league championship team, winning Channel League MVP. After being lightly recruited by mostly Division-III schools, he bet on himself, choosing the Vaqueros instead. A decision, Engebretsen believes, that elevated the program.
SBCC had three consecutive winless conference seasons prior to the pandemic. In 2022-23, Mandel's first year, the Vaqueros finished tied for 4th in the WSC with a 6-6 record.
"Him just deciding to come to our school helped in the community with recruiting, showing the town of Santa Barbara that we do like local kids—we want local kids," Engebretsen said. "I think people kind of saw [his decision to come to SBCC] as a little bit of a turning of the page for us within the local recruit community. He put us on the map in that regard."
On the floor in his freshman year, Mandel performed up to expectations, too. Leading the Vaqueros to their winningest season since 2009, he also led the team in points (18.9), rebounds (9.2), and blocks per game (1.4), good for a 1st Team All-Conference selection.
Year two began as more of the same as Mandel tallied 20 points on 9-of-13 shooting, 8 rebounds, and 3 blocks in an opening night win over El Camino. But, he exited in the final minutes with what turned out to be a broken leg.
Just over a month later, he gutted out 6 minutes off the bench in a win over Desert at the SBCC Tournament. He was pretty productive for a guy rehabbing a broken leg, scoring 6 points and grabbing 3 rebounds. Unfortunately, that would be the last time he would check in for the Vaqueros.
Still, Mandel cashes in his productive freshman year with a scholarship from recently-promoted Division-II Westmont, outdoing the recruiting from his high school days. Importantly, for him, his family only has to travel a few more exits down the 101 to watch him play.
"It's going to be great staying in the local area," Mandel said. "It'll be really cool that my family will be able to come out to most of the games."
Due to his injury this past year, he enters the Warriors program with three more years of eligibility.
"I had great conversations with Coach [Landon Boucher], and I've got three years to play there and I think I've got a good outlook to see what I can do there," Mandel said.
Academically, Mandel is just as excellent as he is on the basketball floor. A 4.0 student in SBCC's Honors Program, he should adapt to Westmont's rigorous academic demands just fine.
"I've loved the classes I've been able to take [at SBCC]. Right now, I'm a history major, I'm looking into law and I've taken some criminal justice classes, … so hopefully I get to continue with that.
"These two years went by really fast," Mandel concluded. "I've loved all my time here. I'm happy to move on but I'm going to miss it. I had a really great experience here."
"Outstanding guy, great leader by example in the program," Engebretsen added. "We're going to miss him, but Westmont gets him three years, and that's great for them, and hopefully he goes over there and does great things."
SBCC Athletics wishes Aidan the best of luck in his future academic and basketball endeavors just down the road, and we look forward to following his journey at Westmont.
