Arizona coach Sean Miller may already have a full set of scholarship players for 2020-21 on hand in addition to Brandon Williams, but he said Tuesday the sophomore guard's status has not changed.
During his first conversation with outside media since the Wildcats beat Washington in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament, Miller spoke of how the COVID-19 situation has delayed his process to figure out what's next.
"He hasn't really even been able to get evaluated by any doctor based on, you know, nothing injury related, but all the COVID" restrictions, Miller said. "So I think his status hasn't changed. He's on full scholarship. He's finishing up for the spring semester — as a matter of fact, he's in summer class right now. We need to be able to get him back whenever we get clearance, so that he can finish a very crucial part (of his evaluation). Not until we cross that will he completely feel comfortable on when and if and how he is getting back onto the court. So that's why it's somewhat ambiguous. It's nothing that we're trying to hide."
Later, Miller added: "We have to let this play out. If we didn't hit the virus, I think all the answers would be clearly on the table. I think he would know himself how healthy he is and what he can and can't do."
Williams missed all of last season after a second surgery on his congenital knee injury, and Arizona's signing of seven additional players this spring would suggest Williams is not expected to stay at Arizona unless on a medical leave scholarship.
But Miller did not rule out that there would be room for Williams should he be able to play for the Wildcats. He pointed to the late spring shuffling last year that resulted in Devonaire Doutrive returning and Alex Barcello leaving, among other things.
"We had I think three, maybe four things that happened in terms of our roster changing from the Memorial Day weekend until we began the fall semester," Miller said. "There's there's different guys that that have some academic work to do, and in our case, clearly we're working hard from the international perspective to make sure that we have any problems solved and working there.
"We have a lot of guys that are home and, you know, working academically, you know to establish themselves on the back but I think when we get through the summer, when we show up in the fall we'll be at 13 scholarship players. I think that it will all work out. I say that with great confidence, work out not only for our program, but I think work out for everybody that we're involved with at this moment."
Among Miller's other comments during the Zoom media call:
• Miller said he and new assistant coach Jason Terry long ago patched up their relationship after Terry called for UA to "clean house" in the wake of the February 2018 ESPN report that Miller discussed paying a player.
@APlayersProgram BearDown it’s time to clean house and bring home our own bloodlines to carry on Lutes Legacy. We have too much pride, too much tradition to allow outsiders to tear down what we built.
— Jason "The Jet" Terry (@jasonterry31) February 24, 2018
"We repaired that, and had a good conversation about it some time ago," Miller said. "I appreciated at that moment just the thought that he had of reaching out and getting back on the same page.
"And he didn't need to explain the emotion behind what he said. I think I understood it, and it's one of the things that you appreciate about our program... there's people that our program matters to them. They want us to do well. They care a great deal about it and when you care about something, sometimes you can become emotional but we crossed that bridge, a long long time ago."
Miller compared his most decorated European recruit, Azuolas Tubelis, to departed forward Zeke Nnaji in some respects.
"I think he gives us a lot of the same things that we came to love about Zeke Nnaji in that he's a forward who's versatile, very physical, can impact the game around the basket," Miller said. "But he also is adept away from the rim, maybe even a little bit more so than Zeke. Zeke may be a little bit bigger and more physical around the basket."
• Miller said Tubelis has great experience in FIBA while coming from a country with a proven pipeline of basketball talent.
"Lithuania is a country that speaks for itself, when it comes to having great success," he said. "There's been an amazing amount of players from their country that have come over here and impacted college in the NBA, their, their national teams are always incredibly well coached and competitive. And in those guys are a part of that."
• Even though the Wildcats remain involved with a number of American five-and four-star prospects from the class of 2021, Miller said he tried to make international recruiting more of an option two years ago, and that the addition of Jack Murphy as associate head coach helped because of Murphy's overseas contacts.
"We set out as far back as a couple of years to mix it in and make it a part of what we do," Miller said. "I think each year is different, obviously because we signed only one player in the fall, Dalen Terry, and then you never really know how many you're going to lose when you bring in four freshmen, three of them that leave. All of a sudden now you have a lot of need and thank goodness we had cultivated that.
"I think that the young guys coming in will be great additions to our program and we welcome them with open arms and I think that at the end of the day the class that we put together is a very good one.
"Maybe it's a little bit more heavy towards international this year. That also doesn't mean next year we're going to bring in four or five international players, maybe one, maybe none. I don't know. But I think being able to pull from different aspects of recruiting takes a lot of pressure off, especially a program like ours where oftentimes we need to call on four or five six new players from one season to the next."
We'll have more from Miller posted later Tuesday and in Wednesday's print edition.
