Sean Miller elated with Arizona Wildcats' recruits after facing 'mountain of adversity'

While speaking for the first time about his top-rated fall recruiting class Tuesday, Arizona coach Sean Miller stopped at one point to gather Arizona’s four letters of intent. Then he put them down, one at a time.

“Here’s one,” he said, waving off a question as he set the second paper down on the interview podium. “Here’s two. There’s three. There’s four.”

Miller’s tone was defiant, and his words were proud.

He spoke of the talent, character and work ethics of signees Nico Mannion, Josh Green, Terry Armstrong and Christian Koloko, and spoke just as passionately about the effort he and his staff made in landing them.

After last season ended, Miller had just six players lined up for this season. Then he landed five more to play this fall, while also landing grad transfer Stone Gettings for the 2019-20 season. Miller and Arizona then signed another four for next season, including two players — Mannion and Green — who are listed as five-star recruits.

A fifth addition, four-star forward Zeke Nnaji, committed after the fall signing period ended last week and was not part of Tuesday’s discussion. Arizona initially publicized Brandon Williams and Shareef O’Neal a year ago after they signed nonbinding scholarship papers. When attempts were made to ask if Nnaji had done the same, Miller responded by flashing the four LOIs.

Counting Nnaji’s pending addition, that’s a total of 11 recruits in the past seven months, including the since-departed Omar Thielemans.

“That’s really, really hard to do, especially in climbing the mountain of adversity that we’ve certainly been responsible for climbing,” Miller said. “I would say that we’ve worked seven days a week, oftentimes 20 hours (a day), we have assistant coaches Danny Peters, Justin Gainey, Mark Phelps, that at times slept in the office, worked around the clock, traveled internationally, coast-to-coast, to make that happen.

“The effort to make that happen is unprecedented in my lifetime as a college basketball player or coach, and it’s more of that effort and togetherness of our staff and program that I’m most proud of, and I’m certainly elated to be able to welcome the class that we have.”

The fact that Miller was able to assemble the class with the federal investigation and trials into college basketball still hovering has attracted considerable national publicity. In just one example, a CBS Sports headline blared last month: “Defiant revival in the desert: An FBI investigation hasn’t stopped Arizona from hauling in top recruits.”

Asked about recruiting in that environment, Miller spoke of lessons he learned as a youth.

“You know, I learned a long time ago, (from) great parents, my dad, ‘Keep your month shut and just work hard,’” Miller said. “Everybody talks about culture in sports. Culture is what you guys write about … identity is what you control. That’s what we do. Every day. Our players and how we handle ourselves.

“If the identity here is ‘Shut up and get the job done,’ well, then, I’ll take that. That’s what we do.”

Theh UA’s five fall recruits actually mean Arizona is one over the 13-player scholarship limit for 2019-20 as of now. The number counts Gettings, who will practice this spring with the Wildcats but won’t play until next season.

Of course, the Wildcats and all high-major teams often have early spring departures to other schools or pro basketball. Miller, as a result, may easily have room by the time April rolls around.

“Certainly, we are trying to run our program as best as we can with the info that we have,” Miller said. “Every spring brings change and we want to be prepared for that change, and really that’s what we’ll spend the next four or five months doing.”

Miller said it is possible he might even look to add a sixth player in the spring depending on how the UA’s roster situation plays out. For now, however, Miller said he’s focusing on recruiting 2020 players and “really getting ahead at an earlier period of time than we were able to last year.”

Forward Ryan Luther was battling a minor injury to his nonshooting hand when he was scoreless against Gonzaga and Auburn last week in Maui, Miller said.

However, Miller said Luther is practicing this week and is edging “closer to 100 percent” every day.

Luther hurt his hand against Iowa State last Monday, Miller said. Luther went a combined 0 for 5 against Gonzaga and Auburn while averaging 5.5 rebounds in those two games.

“We were fortunate that he had the resolve and toughness to play in the next two games,” Miller said. “That certainly affected his aggressiveness and rightfully so. The fact that he played is a testament to his unselfishness and the type of kid he his.”

Miller revealed the injury when asked how UA coaches can get Luther more involved. The Pitt transfer also only shot twice against UTEP on Nov. 14 at McKale Center.

Miller later added that the “challenge for us as a coaching staff is to get the very best out of our players. … (It’s to) make sure we get a balance of throwing him the ball more. He’s not somebody who’s going to call upon himself to do that. He’s going to have to do that with our help.”

Freshman guard Devonaire Doutrive played only a minute in Maui but still may have a chance to crack the Wildcats’ rotation.

“He’s close,” Miller said. “It’s just when you play another player you’re going to take away from someone else. We want to put Devonaire in a good light. You’ve seen when he’s gotten his opportunity here in McKale, that he’s made some good plays.

“But like any freshman, there’s a big learning curve on defense and I think he’s getting better every day. I think putting him in the game is something we need to (try) because he can help us with some energy and playmaking we need off the bench.”