Because he missed eight games with a foot injury this season, Kaleb Tarczewski canβt become Arizonaβs winningest all-time player until at least the Wildcatsβ final homestand.
The way he rolls, maybe thatβs fitting.
For the 7-footer known to fans as βZeus,β itβs always been about being patient, putting the work in and building toward a payoff well beyond the timelines that todayβs culture sometimes demands. Itβs βthe process,β as heβs fond of noting.
Tarczewski would already have the record had he not missed eight games with a foot injury suffered on Thanksgiving night, but whatβs another month or so of waiting when heβs spent a year or more in school past normal expectations anyway?
A former high school All-American whoβs still in college after four years? Cβmon. Who sticks around school that long with his kind of credentials anymore?
Certainly not two former UA teammates who joined him as 2012 Jordan Brand Classic all-Americans: Grant Jerrett, who left the UA after one year; and Brandon Ashley, who left after three (though neither are currently in the NBA).
βItβs funny,β Tarczewski said before this season. βI remember coming out of high school, I felt like everyoneβs goal was to make the NBA and (to see) how fast can you get there. But in my experience at UA, I feel like I came in as a boy and almost left as a man. I feel like Iβve kind of wisened up to a lot of the things, the hype as people call it.
βIβm kind of blessed with a great family and people who have really kind of guided me to make the decision that I have. It was a great decision.β
In some ways, it really wasnβt even a decision. Not by todayβs standards, anyway. Rumors come swift and often every April about whoβs leaving for the NBA draft and whoβs staying, and while Ashley, Stanley Johnson and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson made clear their plans to leave Arizona early, Tarczewski didnβt say anything until he told ESPN in late April that it was a βno-brainerβ to stay.
There was no press conference, no news release, no emoji-decorated Twitter announcement. Actually, that last one wasnβt even an option: Tarczewski hasnβt ever posted to his own Twitter account and stopped retweeting things more than two years ago.
βI try to stay away from that world,β Tarczewski said. βI try to keep my life as simple as possible. It makes it a lot easier for me.β
Last summer was typical. While preparing for his senior season last summer, Tarczewski buried himself in books and basketball.
Some of those books were the ones he loaded up on as a new student in UAβs Eller College of Management and another was βThe Energy Bus.β
He loved that one. Recommended to him by UA coach Sean Miller and associate head coach Joe Pasternack, βThe Energy Busβ is about a man whose personal and professional lives are in shambles until a flat tire forces him to start riding to work with an enthusiastic bus driver who convinces him that heβs actually the one in charge.
Nobody else.
βItβs about really having a positive mindset every day and how to act to get the most out of everyday life,β Tarczewski said. βThe first rule in that book is youβre the driver of your own bus, and thatβs really important for me, to kind of take ownership of my life and doing what I want to do to make me happy.
βThatβs the most important thing. I love being able to read and get different views and different opinions on stuff.β
He found schoolwork has been pretty worthwhile, too, since enrolling in Eller last year. Tarczew-ski said he loaded up with five courses during the second semester last year, took four last summer, five in the fall and has three now.
He said the focus on management has not only helped him learn to work with people, but also to get the most from what he has.
βI feel that directly correlates to basketball,β Tarczewski said. βI think business is just such a good degree to have because itβs not only about business, itβs about life as well, itβs about how to manage your day-to-day activities. It works a lot on your personal skills, how to manage other people.
βEcon, finance, personal finance β thatβs all stuff you can use in your day-to-day life and it makes things a lot easier. Iβll use it every day and hopefully be able to get a job at some point. Hopefully someday Iβll be able to not work for anybody and just work for myself. Thatβs something Iβve always wanted to do.β
But first, Tarczewski says, he also wants to play basketball as long as he can.
Even though Tarczewski is projected only as a mid-second-round NBA pick by NBAdraft.net and not at all by Draft Express, Miller said he has some pretty rare skills that could keep him in the league for a while.
βIβm telling you, watching him right now I have a hard time believing he wonβt have a long career in the NBA, because he just does things that most people canβt do,β Miller says.
Tarczewski isnβt a monster shot-blocker. He isnβt a prolific scorer. But heβs 7-feet-tall, a rock-solid screener, an increasingly ferocious rebounder with 29 boards in his past two games, and, as Miller has said repeatedly, helps everything run smoothly by knowing exactly where he should be every time.
βNot until heβs not here will everybody truly understand what I mean,β Miller said.
It took Tarczewski a while to understand it, too, even though heβs been a full-time starter for nearly four years now, a guy who has been a part of only two wins fewer than UAβs current all-time winningest player, Matt Muehlebach (who played in 109 victories from 1988-91).
βI think Kaleb came to realize at one point that there arenβt many 7-footers who are intelligent on and off the court, incredibly competitive, tremendously gifted defensively and rebound at the highest level,β Miller said.
βWhen youβre one of them, a lot of good things will happen in your future.β
For a while this season, though, Tarczewski had every reason to wonder if good things were really going to happen, or if his decision to return was somehow cursed. Once he decided to play as a senior, Tarczewski joined USA Basketball for the Pan American Games, then returned to campus to prepare for his senior season.
Then, just weeks into preseason practices, he suffered a badly sprained right ankle that kept him out of the Oct. 17 Red-Blue Game and many other workouts. Tarczewski played through UAβs first six games in November, then went down again on Nov. 26 with a stress reaction and muscle strain to his left foot, this time needing six weeks.
He didnβt return until Pac-12 play started, but, oddly, soon after began playing better than he ever had as a Wildcat. Heβs averaging 10.2 points and 9.2 rebounds in 13 Pac-12 games since returning.
Maybe, in the long-view that defines Tarczewskiβs UA career, the injuries were just another step forward even if they appeared backward at first.
βI mean itβs always disappointing not to be out there with your team, having gone through battles with them,β Tarczewski said last week. βBut in some ways it might have been a good thing. β¦ I feel fresh and Iβm just trying to make my last games here memorable.β
As it turns out, all those goals he returned for as a senior are still approachable, too. Delayed, maybe, but approachable.
UA has to win three of its four regular-season games for Tarczewski to become the all-time winningest Wildcat, meaning it could come down to games with Cal on March 3 or Stanford on March 5, depending on how the Wildcats do this week on a road swing to Colorado and Utah.
(UA guard Gabe York is also a fourth-year senior, but heβs five wins behind Tarczewski because players must participate in the wins to count, and York didnβt play in 20 of UAβs 35 games as a freshman in 2012-13.)
At the same time as Tarczewski approaches the record, the Wildcats might also have a shot at winning their third straight outright Pac-12 title, or at least tieing for one.
It could be a memorable finish both for Tarczewski and the Wildcats.
βIf he leaves here as the all-time winningest player in Arizona basketball history after missing the number of games heβs missed this year, thereβs not a more remarkable thing thatβs ever happened for an individual at Arizona,β Miller said. βIf you look at the four-year careers of the great players whoβve played here, theyβve played deep into March and theyβve played a ton of games.
βTo almost shatter that because of being out for eight games (and yet recovering), that says all you need to know about that guy.β
