Shortly after taking over the Wildcats two years ago, Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd indefinitely postponed a scheduled game with Gonzaga so he wouldn’t have to face his old program and former boss Mark Few.
But that couldn’t help him avoid the Zags off the court, and Gonzaga dealt Arizona a big blow Friday when it landed highly rated Canadian point guard Ryan Nembhard out of the transfer portal. A standout for Creighton the past two seasons, Nembhard visited Gonzaga and Arizona over the past week before announcing his decision Friday via Instagram.
Lloyd led the recruitment of Nembhard’s brother, Andrew, to Gonzaga after he left Florida in 2020, leading to speculation that the Wildcats could land Ryan after losing starting guard Kerr Kriisa to the transfer portal and eventually West Virginia.
Lloyd has continued a relationship with the Nembhard family, and Andrew even took in Arizona’s Dec. 1 game at Utah along with former UA standouts T.J. McConnell and Bennedict Mathurin, who also played for Indiana against the Utah Jazz the next night.
But in an interview with ESPN, Ryan Nembhard said his brother “had been telling me for years what a great coach Mark was,” noting that he started more games as a rookie than any other Pacers rookie had in 20 years. (Mathurin has mostly come off the bench for Indiana but is considered one of the NBA’s best rookies this season).
“It’s obvious Andrew was well prepared for the NBA by coach Few and all the staff at Gonzaga the two years he was there,” Ryan Nembhard told ESPN. “Winning, development, and overall happiness are all things I’m hunting. Andrew can’t help me find them. I have to do that on my own. Gonzaga is the place for me, I can just tell.”
The Big East’s Freshman of the Year in 2021-22, Ryan Nembhard played well against the Wildcats in the championship game of the Maui Invitational early last season. Nembhard had 20 points and six assists for the Bluejays, but Arizona pulled out an 81-79 win thanks in part to the 30 points and 13 rebounds that Oumar Ballo collected.
Nembhard averaged 12.1 points and 4.8 assists as a sophomore last season and helped lead the Bluejays to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament. While UA stumbled against Princeton in the first round, Nembhard helped No. 6-seeded Creighton beat NC State, Baylor and Princeton before losing to San Diego State in the South Region final.
Fullerton transfer to visit
Among the Wildcats’ remaining possibilities to help in the backcourt next season is transferring Cal State Fullerton guard Latrell Wrightsell Jr., who told On3’s Joe Tipton that he will visit Arizona on Tuesday after traveling to Alabama this week.
A first-team all-Big West selection last season as a junior, Wrightsell averaged a team-high 16.3 points while also averaging 4.5 rebounds and 2.4 assists. He made an average of 2.4 3-pointers per game, the third-most in the Big West, hitting them at a 38.3% clip.
Former Cal State Fullerton guard Latrell Wrightsell Jr., left, will visit Arizona next week. He averaged a team-high 16.3 points to go with 4.5 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game last season.
Wrightsell is a native of Omaha, where his father, Latrell, was a four-year player for Creighton in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
UA adds Michigan State, Morgan State
Arizona has invited Morgan State back to McKale Center to open next season on Nov. 6 after effectively swapping out participation in the Wooden Legacy for a neutral-site game with Michigan State on Thanksgiving.
If Morgan State’s appearance at McKale Center last season was any indication, the opener might not be an easy warmup for the Wildcats before their trip to play at Duke on Nov. 10 and at Southern on Nov. 12. The Bears actually led most of the first half before UA went on to beat Morgan State 93-68 on Dec. 22, thanks in part to 26 points from Azuolas Tubelis and 21 from Ballo.
As of now, the Wildcats’ early 2023-24 schedule also includes a Nov. 19 home game against a team yet to be determined and a Dec. 20 game against Alabama in Phoenix. There will not be any early December Pac-12 games since the conference plans to have teams play all 20 games after Christmas due to the way the college basketball calendar breaks next season.
Arizona’s Nov. 19 game, scheduled to be against a low-major opponent, will technically be part of a two-game “multi-team event,” including the Michigan State game. The Wildcats and Spartans will play on Thanksgiving at Acrisure Arena in Thousand Palms, California.
A Michigan State booster, Greg Williams, runs a financial technology and insurance company that owns naming rights to the arena, which is currently hosting the Tucson Roadrunners for an AHL hockey playoff series against the Coachella Valley Firebirds.
The Wooden Legacy, which has been expected to include BYU and other schools to be named, is being moved from Anaheim, Calif., to Las Vegas next season. Arizona had last participated in the Wooden Legacy during the 2019-20 season, winning it by beating Pepperdine, Penn and Wake Forest.
Recruiting evaluation season opens
Lloyd is expected to split his time this weekend between Nike and Adidas events during the first open evaluation weekend of the spring.
The Adidas “3SSB” event in Council Bluffs, Iowa, will feature Gilbert Perry’s Koa Peat, a longtime UA recruiting target who is playing for the Adidas-sponsored Compton Magic.
UA class of 2024 commit Jamari Phillips and several other UA targets are scheduled to play a the Nike EYBL event outside of Atlanta. The EYBL circuit is also scheduled to stop in Mesa next weekend.
