A respiratory illness with a serious cause
For most of January 2020, San Diego State listed Nathan Mensah as out with a respiratory illness. By 23 January the Ghanaian forward-center had missed seven games in a row for the Aztecs, and reports at the time gave the reason: a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot in the lungs that had left the second-year player struggling to breathe.
The trouble had shown itself in a game. On 28 December 2019, against Cal Poly, Mensah left the court short of breath. A clot in the lungs is a serious diagnosis for anyone, and for an athlete whose job is to run the floor and contest shots it puts a season, at the very least, in doubt.
An "outside chance" of returning
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that Mensah had only an "outside chance" of playing again that season. The same report noted that another Ghanaian in the Aztecs' frontcourt, forward Joel Mensah, had been dealing with back spasms in recent games, which left coach Brian Dutcher with two Ghanaian big men on the injury list at once.
The outside chance did not come off. Nathan Mensah missed the rest of the 2019-20 season. He finished it with 13 appearances, averaging 6.9 points and 6.8 rebounds, up from the 5.6 points and 5.5 rebounds he had produced as a freshman, when he played in all 34 of San Diego State's games. The improvement was what the coaching staff had hoped for as he settled into Dutcher's system, and the illness stopped it in its tracks.
The Aztecs kept winning
His absence did not slow the team. San Diego State had just reached 20 wins without a loss, matching the best start in the program's history, set by the 2010-11 side led by Kawhi Leonard, later of the Los Angeles Clippers.
They kept going past it. The Aztecs ran their record to 26-0 before a first defeat, won the Mountain West regular-season title and stood at 30-2 and sixth in the national rankings when the NCAA cancelled its tournament on 12 March 2020 as the coronavirus spread. A team that might have been seeded near the top of the bracket never played a postseason game.
Who Nathan Mensah is
Mensah was born in Accra on 9 April 1998. Like many Ghanaian players of his generation, he went to the United States as a teenager, attending Prolific Prep in Napa, California, and then Findlay Prep in Henderson, Nevada, for his senior year. He came to San Diego State in 2018 as a big man whose value lay at the defensive end, and the numbers from his early seasons tell the story of a player still adding to his offense.
| Season | Games | Points per game | Rebounds per game |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | 34 | 5.6 | 5.5 |
| 2019-20 | 13 | 6.9 | 6.8 |
| 2020-21 | 28 | 8.1 | 6.1 |
Back on the court, and further than before
He returned for 2020-21 and played 28 games, averaging 8.1 points and 6.1 rebounds. The years that followed made the 2020 scare look like a detour. Mensah was named Mountain West Defensive Player of the Year in 2022 and again in 2023, and he made the conference's All-Defensive Team three times, from 2021 to 2023. As a senior he appeared in 39 games, more than in any other season, and was named third-team All-Mountain West.
In his final college season he helped San Diego State reach its first Final Four and its first national championship game. The Aztecs lost that final to UConn, 76-59, at NRG Stadium in Houston on 3 April 2023. UConn is a program with its own Ghanaian thread: Amida Brimah won the 2014 national title there.
Undrafted that June, Mensah signed with the Charlotte Hornets, moved to a two-way contract in December 2023 and made his NBA debut on 15 December in a 112-107 loss to the New Orleans Pelicans. He played 25 games for Charlotte that season before being waived on 2 March 2024 and returning to the Greensboro Swarm. Two other Ghana-born players had reached the league before him: Ben Bentil with Dallas in 2017 and Brimah with Indiana in 2021. In January 2020, with a clot in his lungs and a season gone, Mensah joining that short list looked a long way off.