The long outdated “Senior Day” tradition will be reinvented again at Arizona on Saturday.
Last season, UA coach Sean Miller took the microphone at the home finale to acknowledge pro-bound underclassmen Deandre Ayton, Allonzo Trier and Rawle Alkins along with actual seniors Dusan Ristic and Parker Jackson-Cartwright.
“You have to adjust with the times,” Miller said then. “Those guys deserved an ovation just like the seniors because they’re not going to play in McKale again.”
This time, after Arizona hosts ASU at McKale Center, the Wildcats will honor two “seniors” who haven’t even been in town for nine months.
Yet, in some ways, the debt Arizona owes Ryan Luther and Justin Coleman may be of a weight similar of four-year players.
“Without both of them, I don’t know if we’d have won 10 games,” Miller said.
“Without both of them, I don’t know if we’d have won 10 games,” said coach Sean Miller of Ryan Luther, left, and Justin Coleman.
To see why, it only takes looking back to that “Senior Day” a year ago. Miller was saying goodbye to his entire starting five, and thanks to investigation-related issues that scared off all of UA’s initial 2018 commits and targets, nobody was coming in the door to replace them at that point.
Entering last April, the Wildcats had just six bodies on the roster for this season: Returning role players Ira Lee, Brandon Randolph, Dylan Smith, Emmanuel Akot and Alex Barcello, plus redshirting center Chase Jeter.
But Miller had already headed out to watch Devonaire Doutrive in a high school playoff game just two days after the Wildcats’ season ended in a dismal first-round NCAA Tournament loss to Buffalo, and UA landed Doutrive by the second week of April.
Then came Luther, a hometown forward for Pitt who indicated disenchantment on Twitter with how the school fired Kevin Stallings last spring. With an extra season in his pocket thanks to a foot injury that limited him last season, Luther started looking at where he could spend it elsewhere.
Luther visited UA along with lightly known forward Omar Thielemans and both committed within a week (though Thielemans left the Wildcats in October).
“I really didn’t have any doubts with an opportunity to play my last year at a program like Arizona and play for Coach Miller,” Luther said.
Then it was Coleman’s turn.
Justin Coleman (12) celebrates with teammate Brandon Williams after Coleman drained a 3-pointer that proved to be the game-winning basket against UC Davis on Dec. 22, 2018, at McKale Center. Arizona won 70-68.
Having started his career at Alabama, Coleman became a second-team all-Southern Conference pick at Samford last season and started eying a return to the high-major stage. Because he sat out a year at Samford in 2016-17, he also had an extra season to spare.
By the end of April, Coleman was on board at UA. He and Luther just had to finish up their undergraduate degrees last spring so they could become immediately eligible at Arizona under the NCAA’s grad transfer rule.
“You had to take a big leap of faith to take that step as a grad transfer because you never know what can happen,” Coleman said. “Some schools can call; some schools don’t. So I was just taking a leap of faith and trusting God.”
Coleman’s leap gave the Wildcats 10 guys.
Suddenly, they had a team.
They also had enough of a team that one of their initial 2018 commits, guard Brandon Williams, knew he’d have someone to pass to if he re-committed.
So, during the first weekend of May, Williams showed up at a Ballislife All-Star Game and ripped off a gray sweatsuit.
Underneath he wore a UA shirt.
“Bear down,” Williams said.
Ryan Luther (10) played at UA coach Sean Miller's alma mater, Pitt, before graduating and transferring to Arizona. Luther said he couldn't pass up the opportunity to play for Miller.
Luther and Coleman’s role in gluing the 2018-19 roster together was only the first part of it, of course.
By October, Miller had identified Coleman not only as the Wildcats’ point guard but also a co-captain, full of personality, leadership and humbleness. Luther was the quiet, easygoing and steady force, able to play inside but also proving so indispensable as an outside shooter that Miller told him he would be unselfishly hurting the team if he didn’t take open shots.
Luther’s role changed, but his approach never did. He started early in the season, then moved out of the way while the apparently unhappy Akot started throughout December, then moved back in the lineup after Akot quit in January.
Both Luther and Coleman have shown an understated toughness, too.
Luther broke a finger in the first round of the Maui Invitational but never missed a game, while Miller declined for months to say what he was actually dealing with.
Coleman separated his shoulder in practice on Dec. 31, was limited against Colorado three days later and took a shot to the shoulder against Stanford on Jan. 9, but never did miss a game.
“Both guys, other than maybe a couple days, I don’t think they’ve missed a day at practice outside of those two injuries,” Miller said.
But Coleman and Luther have not been traveling on a one-way street. There have been benefits for them, too.
Sean Miller deemed point guard Justin Coleman a co-captain of the team, along with junior Chase Jeter. Coleman first played at Alabama and Samford before he transferred to UA.
For Coleman, it was a final chance to play in a high-major conference, in front of five-figure crowds, and with a clear-cut opportunity to run the team as a starting point guard.
“It was a blessing just to have coach Miller call and show interest in a guy like myself,” Coleman said. “And, like Ryan (has said), it’s just being a part of a program like this, with all the history it has accomplished, and having a great coaching staff, and coach Miller.
“I wanted to go out my last year playing for a team like this.”
That is pretty much what Luther has consistently said all season.
“I’ve really loved my time here, whether it’s playing on the court, the coaches, players,” Luther said.
Off the court, Luther jokes about nice weather and how often he’s had family members visit from Pittsburgh to soak it up this season.
But the biggest off-court benefit both he and Coleman could eventually use might be their graduate degrees in educational leadership. Coleman says they probably will have finished enough of the program to walk in May graduation ceremonies, then finish up with more online courses over the summer.
That grad degree could help them in coaching, which both Luther and Coleman said they might pursue in at some point.
“I think I’ll be interested,” Luther said. “You never know what’s gonna happen after this year, but I think down the road, for sure.”
By now, they’re used to not knowing exactly what’s ahead.
“Both of those guys believed in what we have here, and joined us late in the spring at a time of uncertainty,” Miller said. “I’m glad that they’ve been able to have the role that they both had on this year’s team and we’re eager to send them out with a victory.”