Daniel Bejarano, shown here playing for the Arizona Stars AAU team during the summer, scored 19 points with five rebounds and five assists in Phoenix North's season-opening 71-63 win over Phoenix St. Mary's on Monday night. (Photo courtesy Arizona Republic/Charlie Leight)

UA assistant coach James Whitford was able to break free from the Wildcats’ late practice Monday to make it in time to watch his shooting guard recruit Daniel Bejarano start the 2009-10 season with Phoenix North High School.

Whitford was part of a near-capacity crowd at Grand Canyon University’s Antelope Gym. The game between North, the reigning Class 5A Division II champion, and Phoenix St. Mary’s was also televised throughout the state of Arizona on Cox Cable 7.

Bejarano, who ran mostly the point guard position and did not score in the first quarter, got others involved as North built a 17-1 lead and never trailed en route to a 71-63 victory.

“For those who have not seen me practice, yeah it was new to them that I was running the point,” Bejarano, 6 foot 5 and 205 pounds, told me tonight on the phone. “But I have been running the point guard position the last two to three weeks. It’s something new, but I felt comfotable passing the ball. I didn’t score in the first quarter but I didn’t mind that as long as we’re winning.”

Whitford talked in detail after the game with Bejarano, a senior who signed a national letter of intent with Arizona almost three weeks ago. Whitford and UA head coach Sean Miller have not seen Bejarano play in an organized game at the high school level. They have seen him, however, at elite camps over the summer.

“He was really happy to see me play,” Bejarano said. “I was talking to James afterward and he had a lot of good things to say. He just told me to be more aggressive and take the ball to the hole more. I shot the hell out of the ball from the outside but I settled for jumpers too much.

“In our next game (Thursday against Mesa High School), you’ll see me take the ball to the hole a lot more.”

Bejarano finished with a team-high 19 points with five rebounds and five assists. He converted 4 of 10 from three-point range and 6 of 18 overall from the field.

He said he was also slowed by cramping in both legs. The atmosphere of Antelope Gym was to his liking “but I might have got too excited which made me a little nervous,” he said. “I could have scored a lot more, but I’m more about my teammates and getting them involved.”

“Going into the season, my main focus was improving my ball-handling and I think I did a good job of that. The thing I want to do now is attack the basket from anywhere on the court, it doesn’t matter if I’m playing the 2 (shooting guard) or the 3 (wing position) or the 1 (point). I know I need to be more aggressive out there.”

RECRUITING NOTE: Potential recruit Chris Hill, a 6-8 forward from Stevens Prep Academy in Raleigh, N.C., told me today that he played well in a couple of games at the Bull City Classic at Durham, N.C., over the weekend. Hill scored 25 points with 15 rebounds and nine assists in one game and posted a career-high 49 points with 13 rebounds, five assists and four blocked shots in the second game. Hill said he still favors Arizona if Miller and his staff continue to pursue him after he gains clearance from the NCAA regarding his qualifying courses. Other schools showing increasing interest in Hill, who is 19 and would enter the 2010-11 season as a collegiate sophomore, are West Virginia, Syracuse and St. John’s. “I am going to put in more sacrifices through workouts over the summer and now (to sway the interest of Arizona’s coaches),” Hill said.

PLEASE VISIT WILDABOUTAZCATS.com for additional information regarding Wildcat athletics. Javier can be reached at wildaboutazcats@gmail.com.

Quick hits on the recruiting trail:

• Communicated today with Phoenix North High School shooting guard Daniel Bejarano, who has signed a national letter of intent with Arizona, and he mentioned that the Mustangs’ season opener Monday at 7 p.m. against Phoenix St. Mary’s will be shown live on Cox Channel 7. Phoenix North is the reigning Class 5A Division II state champion. This will be a good chance to see what kind of skills Bejarano has to offer. “I’m focusing on getting my teammates another state championship,” Bejarano said. “That’s all I can think about.”
• Class of 2011 recruit Sidiki Johnson begins his 2009-10 season Dec. 7 with St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark, N.J.
• Potential Class of 2010 recruit Chris Hill is eight games into his season at Stevens Prep Academy in Raleigh, N.C. His team, 5-3, begins play in the prestigious Bull City Classic on Friday in Durham, N.C. The tournament features top prep schools in North Carolina, California, Florida, Oklahoma and Indiana.
• One interested observer of the UA’s Dec. 2 game with UNLV will be highly coveted Class of 2012 recruit Shabazz Muhammad of Las Vegas Bishop Gorman High School. The game will be televised via Fox Sports Arizona, which is available in the Las Vegas market. Muhammad, a 6-4 shooting guard, is being recruited by UNLV, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, North Carolina and UCLA, among others. UNLV coach Lon Kruger is a good friend of Shabazz’s father — former USC player Ron Holmes — who has let it be known that the Rebels are very much in play for his son’s services. Holmes ranks as one of the Trojans’ top 20 scorers in that school’s history.

Raleigh (N.C.) Stevens Prep forward Chris Hill sounds like he's headed to Arizona as long as questions about his academic qualifications are answered

RELATED LINK: NCAA finds Laurinburg Institute unfit as an academic establishment. This is a significant reason why Chris Hill was not cleared to play this year for a Division I institution and was forced to complete required courses at Stevens Prep Academy.

If potential Arizona recruit Chris Hill of Stevens Prep Academy in Raleigh, N.C., plays with as much determination as how he speaks, the Wildcats will be … well, allow me to let Hill finish the sentence:

“That program will be back on top,” Hill said. “I don’t want to only go there. I want to go to Arizona and work hard to become a big part of their program. I want to help those guys get that program back to where it should be.”

When talking to Hill, I got the sense that his mind is made up on Arizona. The obstacle is academics, but that hurdle is not insurmountable, according to Hill. It’s true that Arizona has yet to offer a scholarship because of questions concerning Hill’s completion of qualifying core classes while he attended Laurinburg (N.C.) Prep before transferring to Stevens Prep.

Before you start thinking that Hill is all about basketball and not about the books, you might want to reserve your judgment. People can easily jump to their own conclusions that a player with academic concerns is not intelligent or mature enough to handle responsibility. Again, allow me to let Hill answer that perception:

“I’d like to squash the rumors that are flying around out there on the message boards,” Hill said. “I’m not old. I’m only 19. I never played in junior college. As it is right now, I have three years (of college) eligibility remaining (because of his age). I might have four after everything is researched.

“The NCAA is checking into whether I have all my (academic) qualifiers from Laurinburg. I think they will find out that I do. Right now, I’m taking college prep courses at Stevens Prep. I could complete all my schoolwork by December. The way I look at it is I’m doing everything I can to make myself better. Once people see me at Arizona, then what are they gonna have to say?”

Hill added that he communicates often with the UA coaching staff — the most recent discussion was Sunday — and that he expects assistant coach Book Richardson to pay him a visit by Dec. 4. He has not committed to Arizona, but the visit by Richardson will help him get closer to sealing the deal with Sean Miller. Kentucky and UConn have also been reported as possible suitors. One Web site recently reported that Hill might test the NBA if he does not get a scholarship offer.

(more…)