Zeus' return, Tollefsen's choice make Arizona team to beat
Sean Miller’s roster management skills are so exemplary that in the space of 24 hours last week he “gained” two exceptionally tall players who have combined to score 1,957 points in Division I basketball.
Arizona’s only unexpected loss since New Year’s Day was freshman power forward Craig Victor, who has scored 25 points in college basketball. He is now at LSU.
The two unexpected gains are 7-foot Kaleb Tarczewski and San Francisco’s 6-10 Mark Tollefsen. That’s a trade you make every day: Zeus and Tollefsen for Craig Victor. It’s a gain of 1,932 points.
Don’t weep for Miller. No one in the Pac-12 is.
Even though he lost bigs Brandon Ashley and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Miller has the league’s top rim protection and its deepest frontcourt.
And almost nobody in college basketball has a surplus of talented wing players to exceed those at Arizona for the 2015-16 season: Ray Smith, Allonzo Trier; Gabe York and Kadeem Allen. That’s Kentucky-deep.
Miller already has the top Class of 2016 big-man recruit on the West Coast, 6-foot-10-inch T.J. Leaf, a five-star prospect who last week was named U-T San Diego’s Player of the Year. On Friday, Miller flew to Indianapolis to scout/evaluate 6-8 Vance Jackson, a four-star prospect from Los Angeles’ St. John Bosco High School. Earlier in the week, Miller was in Georgia to visit the nation’s No. 2 point guard prospect, Kobi Jordan Simmons.
The point is: exceptional players leave Arizona every year. But almost nobody in the game is as well-prepared for those losses as Sean Miller.
Of all the non-seniors on Arizona’s 2014-15 roster, Tarczewski’s return, while unexpected, was the most pivotal. He is the top defensive presence in the Pac-12.
His decision to play a final season at Arizona changes everything.
