UTEP Basketball Lands Eric Vila to Round Out 2019 Signing Class
After announcing the signings of both Jesse Zarzuela, a 6-foot-3 guard from Houston, and Brendan Wenzel, a 6-foot-6 sharpshooter from San Antonio, UTEP men's basketball head coach Rodney Terry broke the news of the team's signing of former Fresno State commit in forward Eric Vila today.
Vila joins the program as a 6-foot-11 big man out of Girona, Spain. He was initially recruited to Texas A&M in 2016, where Vila appeared in 15 games for the Aggies and averaged 2.3 points, 2.0 rebounds and 1.8 assists in 11 minutes per game.
After his freshman campaign with the Aggies, Vila announced that he would be transferring to Fresno State to join Rodney Terry and the Bulldogs. When Terry moved over to UTEP this season, Vila decided to play professional basketball in Europe instead. He played for the FIBA U19 World Cup for Spain last year and averaged 13 points and 10.9 rebounds per game.
Vila is currently on the 2018-19 Northwest Florida State Raiders JUCO squad. Through just seven games, he's averaging 10.7 points per game (50.1 percent shooting on the floor), 4.9 boards per game and 16.9 points per 40 minutes.
Vila will join the 2019-20 signing class as a redshirt junior.
The frontcourt for the Miners will return now-freshmen Kaosi Ezeagu and Efe Odigie and sophomore Gilles Dekoninck. Next year, the team will bring on Division I transfers juniors Bryson Williams and sophomore Tydus Verhoeven, who had to sit out a season due to NCAA transfer rules.
For the full UTEP men's basketball roster, click here.