Arizona fortified its three-guard attack — and bloodlines — for potentially years to come on Saturday when Seattle-area wing Shane Nowell announced he will play for the Wildcats in 2021-22.
A 6-foot-5-inch, 190-pound wing from Eastside Catholic High School in Sammamish, Washington, Nowell is the younger brother of Jaylen Nowell, who became the Pac-12 Player of the Year as a sophomore at Washington in 2018-19, and the son of parents who both played college basketball.
In an Instagram video that partly honored his father, who died of cancer at age 46 in 2015, Nowell showed off an Arizona T-shirt to announce his commitment, having chosen the Wildcats over Washington, Washington State, Montana, Oklahoma and Montana State.
With Nowell, Arizona now has an all-perimeter fall recruiting class that also includes 6-4 wing Shane Dezonie of New Hampshire’s Brewster Academy and 6-2 Los Angeles-area combo guard K.J. Simpson.
Nowell gives the Wildcats a bigger wing with defensive potential and a strong ability to drive to the basket.
“Nowell is a multi-positional lefty on both ends of the floor with good perimeter size and strength,” ESPN recruiting analyst Adam Finkelstein said in a Twitter video. “He scores by getting downhill and drawing contact or with his pull-up game. He’s also a stat-stuffer, passes and rebounds well from the wing.
“He and Dezonie are both talented drivers and defenders who should collectively put tons of pressure on opposing rims at the next level and also give the Wildcats lots of switchability on the defensive end.”
While Dezonie’s commitment was something of a late surprise, since he was outside UA’s recruiting radar until this fall, Nowell had been considered a longtime lean to Arizona.
That’s at least in part thanks to new assistant coach Jason Terry, a native of Seattle who went on to play for the Wildcats and have a 19-year NBA career.
“Arizona is really the only school that I’m looking at right now,” Nowell told 247Sports.com late in his recruitment. “They have been recruiting me really hard for a while and they have had a lot of really good things to say about my game.
“I’m lucky to be in a spot where I am being recruited and I have family members who have been through the process.”
Nowell is the second recruit from the Seattle area to join the Wildcats since Arizona moved to hire Terry last spring.
In April, the Wildcats added Terry’s godson, Seattle U grad transfer Terrell Brown, for this season, and the UA was also in the running for five-star Seattle O’Dea power forward Paolo Banchero and Nowell’s Eastside Catholic teammate, Nolan Hickman.
Nowell and Hickman led Eastside Catholic to back-to-back third-place finishes at the Class 3A state basketball tournament, though Hickman transferred to Utah’s Wasatch Academy. Hickman chose to play college basketball for Kentucky, while Banchero is Duke-bound.
The Wildcats are now one over their 13-player scholarship limit on paper for 2021-22, if only Brown and fellow senior Ira Lee depart, but they routinely also have early spring departures.
