Wild ride leads Eastern Washington transfer Kim Aiken Jr. back to Arizona Wildcats

When Kim Aiken Jr. entered McKale Center last December with his Eastern Washington teammates, something tugged at him. And Jason Terry wouldn’t stop talking.

“It was a very competitive game, and I loved playing against them,” said Aiken, who committed to the Wildcats for a second time Monday. During “free throws on the Arizona side, I’d be going back and forth with coach Terry. And I’d be shooting a 3 in the corner and he’s in my ear.”

It worked in more ways than one for the Wildcats. They squeaked out a 70-67 win over their Big Sky visitors thanks in part to the fact that Aiken made just 1 of 7 3s. Then, having seen how Aiken’s defense helped limit UA’s two starting big men to just eight points, UA pulled in Aiken as a grad transfer four months later.

Pulled him in for a few hours, anyway. But we’ll get back to that.

All the 6-7, 215-pound Aiken knew after that Dec. 5 game was how bad he felt. He said he knew he shouldn’t have been chit-chatting during the game, that maybe staying locked in might have resulted in a major upset for the Eagles.

“I was pretty much not focusing on my team,” Aiken said. “So after the game, coach (Sean) Miller comes up to me and said `You don’t have to prove your confidence,’ or something like that. Because I was trying to show them that I can play here.

“I loved my team at Eastern Washington, so after the game, I was disappointed and I pretty much told them, `I’m so sorry guys, I wasn’t playing for Eastern.’ I was so focused on Arizona that it wasn’t right of me. I shouldn’t have even been on the court.”

Aiken didn’t have that problem the rest of the season. He was named the Big Sky’s defensive player of the year and a first-team all-Big Sky pick, averaging 11.3 points and 8.4 rebounds.

He also helped the Eagles make their third-ever NCAA Tournament appearance, in which they led third-seeded Kansas by up to 10 points in the second half of a first-round game before losing 93-84.

Aiken had just two points and five rebounds in that game but something else was at stake, something that streaked through his decision to commit to Arizona, then Washington State and then Arizona again: Academics.

With the goal of being a politician someday after basketball, Aiken was up against a deadline to submit his capstone paper.

The subject: Mitigating carbon emissions, a topic sitting at the intersection of finance, science ... and politics.

“I had to stay up late, get my profile together, finish up a 10-page paper — and then face Kansas the next day,” Aiken said.

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Aiken made it, graduating with a grade-point average of 3.48 as a political science major at Eastern Washington. Then things started getting weird, both in academics and basketball.

After the season, Eagles coach Shantay Legans left EWU for the University of Portland. Aiken decided to enter the transfer portal and, he said, Miller was the first coach to call.

Aiken said he liked the idea of enrolling in UA’s graduate program in public administration, and the idea of playing for that opposing coach who had his back in December.

So on April 6, news of Aiken’s commitment to Arizona spread. But on April 7, Miller was fired.

Sensing only limited interest initially from new UA coach Tommy Lloyd, Aiken kept his name in the transfer portal.

“It wasn’t like a ‘Get out,’ shut the door in my face,” Aiken said. “It was more of `Keep looking elsewhere. We don’t know what we can do right now.’ So I don’t feel like the door was ever shut. I think it was largely left ajar.”

Aiken said that door, unexpectedly, “blew wide open” three months later. He had since committed to Washington State, moved to Pullman and began working out casually with his new teammates but said his application into WSU’s graduate political science program was denied.

“Once the academic advisers were telling me I’d have to settle for another bachelor’s degree, I was like `Ah, yeah,’ Aiken said with a verbal eye roll, quickly rejecting that idea. “I mean, I get it. A politician doesn’t have to have a master’s, but me being who I am, being an African American male, I think having a master’s would be a great way to show other young African Americans that it is achievable.”

WSU coach Kyle Smith told the Spokane Spokesman-Review that Aiken’s loss was a “tough pill to swallow,” but any disappointment didn’t last long for Aiken. He put his name back in the portal and Arizona was the first to call again.

This time Lloyd was on the line.

Aiken said maybe it helped that forward Jordan Brown transferred from UA in May and it was clear that Lloyd needed another frontcourt player for 2021-22. Aiken’s versatility gives the Wildcats the option of using him either at power forward alongside Azuolas Tubelis, Christian Koloko or Oumar Ballo, or at small forward alongside two of them.

Meanwhile, Aiken says he’ll now pursue that Masters of Public Administration at UA. He has two years left to play, thanks to the NCAA’s eligibility waiver for those who played during the COVID-plagued 2020-21 season, but said he also has the option of finishing the degree later should he play for only one season.

But first, Aiken just has to get to Arizona. As a veteran college student-athlete aware of the new name, image and likeness opportunities, he has an idea.

“I think I’ll tweet out something at U-Haul,” Aiken said. “Like `@U-Haul, I need an NIL (deal) so I can get from the Palouse to Tucson.’ I’ll see if that works.’ “