Sean Miller and his Arizona staff will have the weekend to show off campus and the few Wildcats players in town to highly touted transfers Chase Jeter and Cameron Johnson, but some of his work is already done for him.
With Jeter, Miller has a relationship from their time on the 2014 USA Basketball U18 team, and has already recruited him of Las Vegas' Bishop Gorman High School.
With Johnson, Miller is not only an alum of Johnson's former school (Pitt) but played with Johnson's father, Gilbert, there in the late 1980s.
Johnson told Scout that his dad's relationship with Miller "factors in a little bit because there's familiarity and a level of trust that my dad has with him and that I have with him."
Part of UA's sales pitch for Johnson may also land in the hands of Rawle Alkins -- because if the freshman wing opts to stay in the draft that leaves considerably more playing time and shots available for Johnson, a rare grad transfer who will be able to play immediately and have two more seasons remaining because he sat out one year with a shoulder injury and is graduating in three years.
Johnson told Scout that if Alkins leaves "they have a spot they need me to fill and thereβs a role for me there with the rest of the team there. Thereβs a spot carved out for me there, thatβs their pitch.β
However, Johnson also can see a role for himself at Kentucky, where he told Scout that John Calipari said he needed experience and shooting. Johnson is also looking at Oregon, which is wide open after losing nearly its entire playing rotation.
Jeter, meanwhile, is a different sell because he'll be sitting out the 2017-18 season. UA will undoubtedly stress the success it has had in improving players during their redshirt seasons Β -- such as T.J. McConnell, Ryan Anderson and Kadeem Allen -- while pitching him about the opportunity of playing in a frontcourt that won't be with DeAndre Ayton or Dusan Ristic in 2018-19.
Jeter's father, Chris, told Scout that his son is looking at the way schools use their bigs, so it won't be a surprise if UA shows him a little Lauri Markkanen video. Chase Jeter is looking at a number of top programs in the West, including Oregon, UCLA, San Diego State and Gonzaga (which, of course, also has a good rep in developing redshirting players).
Former UA forward Dennis Latimore, of all people, will now be dealing with LaVar Ball as the latest coach at Chino Hills High School.
In a constantly changing content delivery landscape, Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott says the league is in "great shape" despite the conference's media revenue shortfall compared with the Big Ten and SEC. That's in part because he says its full ownership in the Pac-12 Networks allows it to stay "nimble" in the world of cord-cutting.
