For six weeks this summer, Washington State coach Kyle Smith had a chance to work with Kim Aiken Jr., showing him where he fit in the Cougars’ plans. Then Aiken made a one-way trip to Tucson.
“I guess the six weeks wasn’t as good as we thought,” Smith said, laughing.
It wasn’t the Cougars’ practices that prompted the Eastern Washington grad transfer to recommit last week to the Wildcats, his first choice until coach Sean Miller was fired in April.
Aiken committed instead to WSU and enrolled as an undergraduate, allowing him to join the Cougars for offseason workouts. But Aiken said he decided to leave Pullman late last month after being told he could not advance to WSU’s graduate political science program despite his 3.48 EWU grade-point average, a situation Smith said was “unusual.”
“What bums me out is that I coached in the Ivy League (at Columbia) and really care about academics and so does he,” Smith said. “He’s unique. He’s really driven to do that stuff and so I’m not bitter about it.”
Well, except about one thing.
It was, “Hey, just go to the Big 12!,” Smith said.
Smith struck out there, too. Aiken will return to Pullman next season in a visitors’ uniform, meaning Smith will instead have to scheme against Aiken — not for him.
That may not be easy.
“I think he’s just a really solid two-way player,” Smith said. “He’s a plus defender, and he’s better offensive player than people think. He really plays hard. I think he’ll start for them.”
The Big Sky Conference’s defensive player of the year and an all-conference pick while averaging 11.3 points and 8.4 rebounds for Eastern Washington, the 6-7 Aiken can play either at power forward alongside Azuolas Tubelis, Christian Koloko or Oumar Ballo, or at small forward alongside two of them.
Arizona paired with Wichita State in Las Vegas
The Wildcats will face Wichita State in the opening round of Las Vegas’ Main Event at 8 p.m. on Nov. 19 at T-Mobile Arena, organizers announced Tuesday. The game will be carried on ESPNU.
In the second game that evening, Michigan will face UNLV at 10:30 p.m. on ESPN2. The winners will play in the championship ESPN on Nov. 21 at 7:30 p.m.; the consolation game will follow at 10 p.m.
Michigan is expected to be a preseason Top 10 pick next season, but all three other teams will have new head coaches for their first full season (Wichita State’s Isaac Brown took over the Shockers during last season).
“We have four great basketball brands, and while Michigan may be at the top of the rankings during the preseason, the other three teams bring in top young coaches and superb talent,” organizer Brooks Downing said in a statement.
Former Arizona guard Nico Mannion will play professionally in Italy, though the Golden State Warriors will retain his NBA rights.
Mannion heading to Italian league
After playing for Italy in the Tokyo Olympics, former Arizona guard Nico Mannion will head back to his birth country and play for Virtus Bologna in Serie A next season.
The 48th pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, Mannion split last season between the Warriors and their G League affiliate. The San Jose Mercury News said the Warriors will retain NBA rights to Mannion because they extended a qualifying offer to make him a restricted free agent, and that the multiyear contract has exit clauses should he develop enough to return to the NBA.
Mannion spent the 2019-20 season with the Wildcats, averaging 14.0 points, 5.3 assists and and 1.2 steals per game. He averaged 4.1 points, 2.3 assists and 1.5 rebounds in 30 NBA games last season.
Mannion was born in Siena, Italy, but raised mostly in Utah and Arizona, graduating in 2019 from Phoenix Pinnacle High School. His father, Pace, played in the NBA and Italy, while his mother, Gaia, was a professional volleyball player in Italy.
Swedish national team cuts Larsson
Sophomore guard Pelle Larsson did not make the final 12-player roster for Sweden’s national World Cup prequalifying team after being one of 17 players invited to a week-long tryout.
The Swedish national team has been preparing for a 2023 FIBA World Cup prequalifying event to be played in Portugal from August 12-19, along with teams from Portugal, Austria and Luxembourg. The prequalifier will feed into official World Cup qualifying play in November.
Larsson was one of three Wildcats to gain senior national team experience over the past year. Bennedict Mathurin worked out with Canada’s senior team last month before he was sent to Canada’s U19 team while UA guard Kerr Kriisa played for the Estonia senior team briefly last November.
ESPN Bracketology has Arizona out
ESPN’s updated Bracketology on Tuesday placed UA in its “Next Four Out” category along with Washington State, while projecting four Pac-12 teams in next season’s NCAA Tournament field: UCLA (No. 1 seed), Oregon (6), USC (7) and Colorado (11).
Arizona’s 2021-22 schedule also includes two other projected NCAA Tournament teams — Illinois (2) and Tennessee (5) — while the Wildcats might also face Michigan (2) in the Las Vegas Main Event.
