I watched as Rondae Hollis-Jefferson walked through the Tucson airport Friday morning, arriving early for a charter flight to Maui, Hawaii.
People stopped and gawked. Rondae — he’s on a first name in Tucson, isn’t he? — didn’t dodge it. He stopped. Engaged random fans. Big smiles.
“Bear Down,” he would say through the A concourse.
This is somewhat of a replay of the 1997 and 1998 seasons when UA point guard Jason Terry became the nation’s top sixth man, full of smiles, a team-first player, as Arizona won a national championship and spent much of the next season ranked No. 1.
“Rondae told me that he felt that coming off the bench was not only good for him, but good for the team,” coach Sean Miller said after his sixth man scored 19 points to help beat UC Irvine on Wednesday. “It wasn’t as if I had to sell it. It’s his greatest strength. He’s unselfish to the core.”
This is a win-win situation for Rondae and his team. He will get national recognition as the nation’s top sixth man. The NBA scouts will laud his unselfishness and elevate his stock. And he will become a feared component to all those who play Arizona.
Terry did the same in ’97 and ’98, a year before he became a consensus All-American in 1999. As a junior, in ’98, Terry attempted 294 shots. That was more than 150 behind Mike Bibby’s 450 and almost 200 behind Michael Dickerson’s 473.
But it all paid off for Terry, who was drafted No. 10 overall and has since earned $97.8 in the NBA. His production, personality and mature approach translated into the league’s Sixth Man of the Year Award. He outlasted Bibby, Dickerson and more celebrated UA guard Miles Simon.
The Pac-12 has produced some notable sixth men: UCLA’s Darrick Martin and Darren Collison, Stanford’s David Moseley and Nick Robinson, but until now Terry has no peer.
Rondae could change that over the next four months.
“There are a lot of these guys who will talk the talk and say ‘sacrifice,’ and beat their chest when things are going well,” Miller said. But “there aren’t a lot of kids who would come off the bench if you’re him.”
