Finding talent is Arizona’s top recruiting priority, naturally, and seven straight top-six recruiting classes suggest the Wildcats are pretty good at it.
But now there’s another filter UA coach Sean Miller has been applying, too, one that he says his new 2017 signees have passed through: Guys who love the game.
Guys who really love the game, that is. And, therefore, guys who might be more likely to stick around and keep working rather than transfer or have family members and/or mentors complain when things get tough.
“You have to sign up for a program (thinking), ‘I want to be a part of something bigger than just my individual goal. I love the game of basketball, and I’m willing to put in the work year-round. I love practice. Practice is everything to me,’” Miller said.
“We have found those are the guys who stay with it. They don’t give in, and they truly improve. If you have to force-feed these guys, hold their hands to do things, it’s too highly competitive and they end up not staying on track with maybe what we had hoped or what they had hoped when they came here.”
While reflecting on past recruiting mistakes, Miller said he and his staff decided to dig deeper on the makeup of players they are looking at. It helps that the UA staff is well-established now and can start investigating their targets as 14- and 15-year olds.
“The love of the game … everybody acts like they love the game, but if you really investigate some of these players that we’re recruiting, they love it more than others,” Miller said. “We have a couple on our current team, and Lauri (Markkanen) would stand out. He loves the game. It’s easy for him to come to practice. It’s easy for him to do extra.”
Another example: supremely skilled center DeAndre Ayton, the anchor of UA’s 2017 recruiting class and the No. 1-rated player in the nation.
“He’s obsessed with being a great player and because of that I think his future is incredibly bright,” Miller said. “We’re all looking forward to providing him an environment where he can grow and also give our team and recruiting class that special player who can go inside and out.”
Allen questionable
Senior guard Kadeem Allen appears questionable at best for Friday’s game, with Miller saying he’s still day-to-day in his recovery from a knee sprain he suffered Nov. 11 against Michigan State.
Allen was scheduled to participate only in noncontact drills Thursday, and Miller said how Allen feels after workouts would determine the next step as the Wildcats head into games on Friday and Monday.
“Each day that goes by, he’s in a better position,” Miller said.
Allen hurt the knee by running head-on into a Michigan State player with 12 minutes left, Miller said, though Allen finished the game out by racing coast-to-coast for the game winning layup.
All hands on deck
With the Wildcats still declining to speak about Allonzo Trier’s apparent ineligibility, they could be bracing again for a rotation of just seven scholarship players this weekend if Allen is out.
That means even their game Friday against Sacred Heart of the low-major Northeast Conference could be a concern. As could Monday’s game against Northern Colorado, which is expected to be one of the Big Sky’s weakest teams after NCAA violations prompted a coaching change last spring.
“Every team we play has an opportunity to beat us, especially in our current situation,” Miller said.
But all that doesn’t necessarily make Sacred Heart coach Anthony Latina breathe much easier.
“They’re still terrific and coach Miller is one of the elite coaches in the country,” Latina said. “They’re down to seven but they’re seven pretty good ones.”
The bright side
Sacred Heart suffered something of a small-school nightmare last spring when sophomore guard Cane Broome became the Northeast Conference’s Player of the Year … and then transferred to Cincinnati.
Broome told the Hartford Courant that “it was torture to watch the tournament this year,” saying he was happy to trade in the 23.1 points he averaged last season for a chance to potentially play in the NCAA Tournament with Cincinnati.
Latina said that’s the equivalent of Arizona having to watch Stanley Johnson leave after his freshman year to jump in the NBA Draft. He’ll deal with it.
“We’re really happy for him and proud of him to be the first sophomore conference player of the year in 30 years,” Latina said of Broome. “Coach Miller says Arizona is a player’s program and I think we try to emulate that, too. If a player feels they want to transfer up, we sit down and say, ‘What’s best for your future?’ If the answer is yes, we’re gonna support him. It’s a reality of college basketball.”
As it turns out, Sacred Heart is developing another prolific scorer in wing Quincy McKnight, who is averaging 26.5 points so far, and Latina said he prefers a balanced team anyway.
“We like to be a team that really shares the basketball and gives us some good shots,” Latina said. “We had such a dynamic scorer in Cane, you rely heavily on him. It worked for us because he was so dynamic but you become a little one-dimensional. I like the fact that we can have different guys on different nights. Last year, if Cane didn’t play well, we had a hard time winning.”
Rim shots
- Miller said he will probably add a fourth walk-on soon, likely by going back into the pool of students who competed in a recent tryout. “We’re just trying to add a high character good kid and somebody who has a background playing,” he said.
- Ray Smith will wait until at least next week before undergoing surgery on the torn right ACL that prompted the redshirt freshman to announce his retirement. Miller said Smith will remain with the program until graduation, likely in a graduate-assistant type of role as much as NCAA rules allow.
