Five-star La Mirada wing might follow Derrick Williams' footsteps to Arizona

MESA — Gene Roebuck was just over a year old when Derrick Williams enrolled at Arizona in 2009 and began blowing up into a star, yet he still has a pretty good idea of how it happened.

That was probably inevitable. Roebuck is a five-star wing in the class of 2027 who played for La Mirada High School after all, and with a coach who followed Williams from La Mirada to UA to the NBA and then into international basketball.

“I’ve known my high school coach since sixth grade, and his favorite college was U of A,” Roebuck said. “He always told me ‘U of A,’ and then I’d be at his house watching U of A with him and it was like ‘Derrick Williams was the leading scorer at that school for the longest time.’ He went to U of A, so I just fell in love watching him.”

While Roebuck had to settle for learning the history of Williams’ two-season UA career, and how he blew up into the No. 2 pick of the 2011 NBA Draft, Roebuck said he began following Williams in recent years as he bounced between the NBA, China, Germany, Turkey, Spain, Israel and Greece and Puerto Rico to continue his professional career.

In between, Williams often came back to spend offseasons in his home area, and became a mentor of sorts to Roebuck. The two even had a few workouts together, despite their 17-year age difference.

“Derrick is my guy,” Roebuck said. “He’s a little bit bigger, but his post work … I like to go to the post. He likes to go to the post. He has a lot of half-spins, fake spins, mid-range. A lot of that. So I try to pick up on that.”

In two years, Roebuck might just follow Williams to Arizona, too. The Wildcats have shown significant recruiting interest, watching him at Section 7, and Roebuck says getting scholarship offers from USC, UCLA and UA has been a priority. He said a bond with UA assistant coach TJ Benson has furthered his interest in the Wildcats.

“We have a really good relationship,” Roebuck said. “He communicated with me a lot and obviously the other coaches.”

Roebuck said he’s also heard from Illinois, Texas, BYU, New Mexico State, Utah, Cal and Ohio State, among others.

Cross-country recruiting

While Section 7 schools are mostly based in the Western United States, Zephyrhills Christian Academy came all the way from Florida to play in Arizona — and its five-star 2026 forward might someday make a home in the state.

Toni Bryant said he recently took an unofficial visit to Arizona, thanks in part to a connection with new UA coach Brandon Chappell, who coached his high school coach.

“I’m familiar with all of the coaches there (at UA), so the relationship there is pretty strong,” Bryant said. “I was introduced to (Chappell) when I first started playing basketball.”

Bryant said he planned to schedule an official visit to Arizona in September, but remained wide open in his recruitment.

Attention getter

Entering his senior season at Phoenix St. Mary’s, five-star big man Cameron Williams is facing intense recruiting attention, but he says he’s embracing it.

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“These schools are starting to come on me hard now, and it’s really fun,” Williams said. “I try to reach out and get back to all the coaches, but it’s starting to get serious. It’s starting to schedule visits and all that stuff.”

Williams said Arizona has always been among the top schools he has been interested in and that he even visited UA unofficially three times last season, taking in the Red Blue Showcase and the UA-Duke and UA-BYU games.

While the Wildcats lost to both Duke and BYU at McKale Center, the experience didn’t seem to dampen Williams’ enthusiasm.

“It was amazing,” Williams said. “Just to see how those guys came together, even though they lost, it was a great game to see. I’m glad I went there. It was a great experience.”

Wildcats offer Wabbington

While Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd isn’t known to offer many scholarships to players before their junior seasons, he gave one recently to Phoenix Sunnyslope big man Darius Wabbington.

Wabbington indicated he’s taking it seriously. Wabbington said he’s already taken in the Red-Blue Showcase and visited earlier this spring.

“I’m really interested in them,” Wabbington said Saturday after leading Sunnyslope over Las Vegas Bishop Gorman. “They don’t (offer many early scholarships) but they see something in me. I just gotta show the world. I gotta prove them right.”

Wabbington has plenty of talent around him to help him excel this season. Sunnyslope is expected to be one of Arizona’s top high school teams in 2025-26. Last season, Sunnyslope reached the Open Division final before losing to Gilbert Perry — and Perry lost its coach and the bulk of its talent, including UA forward Koa Peat.

“I feel like we’re the team to beat,” Wabbington said. “Of course, I say that because it’s my team, but we got that chip on our shoulder, we got that ‘X’ on our back. Everybody’s coming to knock us off since, since our resume of last year. So we gotta use that motivation and go and just kill.”

The big number

16: Courts in near-constant use from 8 a.m. to nearly 10 p.m. at the Section 7 event Saturday, except one converted into a Section 7 merchandise stand.

Quotable

“Las Vegas is 24/7, so the head coach of the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels needs to be 24/7. That’s kind of how we’ve been. We’ve had to reconstruct a roster.” — Former UA player and coach Josh Pastner, who mined the transfer portal after becoming UNLV’s head coach after last season