Jason Gardner was selected the national freshman of the year in 2000. Photo by Harry How/Getty Images

Jason Gardner will be the Arizona Wildcats’ inductee into the Pac-12 Men’s Basketball Hall of Honor.

One player or coach is inducted every year from every team, and it’s amazing how Arizona is still going strong in the league’s 11th class.

Gardner, who started 135 of his 136 career games at point guard, averaged 15.6 points per game in his career and helped the Wildcats reach the 2001 national championship game. He is tied for 15th in conference history with 1,984 points and he is 10th with 622 assists.

The Pac-12 will hold the induction ceremony on March 16 before the conference tournament championship game in Las Vegas.

Others who will be headed to the Hall of Honor are:

Dennis Hamilton (Arizona State), Shareef Abdur-Rahim (California), Cliff Meely (Colorado), Chuck Rask (Oregon), Charlie Sitton (Oregon State), Ron Tomsic (Stanford), Lucius Allen (UCLA), Forrest Twogood (USC), Keith Van Horn (Utah), Nate Robinson (Washington) and James McKean (Washington State).

Arizona’s other inductees into the Hall of Honor are:

Sean Elliott (2002), Steve Kerr (2003), Khalid Reeves (2004), Pete Williams (2005), Damon Stoudamire (2006), Chris Mills (2007), Miles Simon (2008), Lute Olson (2009), Mike Bibby (2010) and Michael Dickerson (2011).

Just looking at players from the Pac-10 era, the Wildcats can still go with Derrick Williams, Channing Frye, Salim Stoudamire, Jason Terry, Gilbert Arenas, Andre Igoudala, Luke Walton, Brian Williams … well, you get the idea.

Here is the Gardner bio released by the Pac-12 in its press release:

Gardner was one of the most decorated basketball players in Arizona history. He was named the 2000 National Freshman of the Year and the 2003 Frances Pomeroy Naismith Player of the Year. Gardner earned All-America honors 12 times in his four-year career and finished as one of just four players in Pac-10 history to amass 1,500 career points, 500 assists and 200 steals. He was the highest-scoring guard in Arizona history and third highest overall with 1,984 career points. He led his teams to a 107-29 record, the 2001 National Championship game, two Pac-10 regular season championships and one Pac-10 Tournament title. During his senior year he guided the Wildcats to a 17-1 Pac-10 record. He played 4,825 minutes in his career, the second most in NCAA history. Gardner led the league in scoring in the 2001-02 season with 692 points. He became the first Arizona freshman to be named to the All-Pac-10 first team in 2000. Gardner recently finished a seven-year professional career in Europe spending most of his time in Germany. He is now in his second season as an assistant coach at Loyola University Chicago.

Jason Gardner cuts the net after Arizona won the 2002 Pac-10 tournament, 81-71 over USC. Photo by Harry How/Getty Images

Jason Gardner as a senior during the 2003 Pac-10 tournament. Photo by Stephen Dunn/Getty Images

Former Arizona Wildcats point guard Jason Gardner was hired last month as an assistant coach at Loyola University of Chicago, beginning his college coaching career.

Doug Haller of the Arizona Republic caught up with Gardner, 30, and you can read the full story at his blog at azcentral.com. Here are some of the highlights of the Q&A:

What appealed to you about Loyola?
“A couple things. I think the biggest thing is what the school has to offer and what it stands for. It’s a great academic school and they’re putting a lot of money into the athletic side to build all the programs up. It’s just a great situation with new facilities and a new staff. Coach (Porter) Moser is an X and O’s coach. I think he’s definitely somebody who not only develops players, but also coaches.”

Have you always wanted to coach?
“I always thought I’d get into it after I was finished playing. Last year I had an opportunity to get to know (Indiana coach) Tom Crean, and that helped out. I ended up working at Cathedral High School under Andy Fagan. He’s a great teacher of the game. This summer I worked (on the AAU circuit) and that was definitely an experience. And now I’m here at Loyola.”

Did you enjoy playing overseas?
“My family got to see a lot of different places throughout Europe. My daughter (8-year-old Jasper) got to see the London Bridge and the Eiffel Tower, and when she sees those things now, she’s like ‘Daddy, we’ve been there.” At one time, I was like, ‘It’s OK playing here,’ but now when my daughter says things like that it makes me appreciate it more.”

Was it tough not making it to the NBA?
“It was. We played at a high level at Arizona, and I played against a lot of those point guards coming out, so you always wonder, ‘Why not me?’ When you grow up as a kid, you think, ‘Oh, I’m going to play in the NBA,’ so when it doesn’t happen, it’s a little bit of a shock, but you got to get back up. At the end of the day you have to find a way to get over it. I ended up having a great career in Europe, playing with a lot of good people, learning a lot more about basketball.”

Read more at the Arizona Republic …

Jason Gardner talks to coach Lute Olson during a 2003 Pac-10 Tournament game against UCLA. Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images

Here is a story on former Arizona Wildcats point guard Jason Gardner from our Gannett partner, the Indianapolis Star. Check out the link at the Indianapolis Star for a slideshow of Gardner through the years.

By Kyle Neddenriep

Jason Gardner is one step closer to his goal of becoming a Division I college basketball head coach.

Gardner, the former Indianapolis Star Indiana Mr. Basketball from North Central High School, was hired as an assistant at Loyola (Ill.) today. Part of his responsibilities will be to recruit the state of Indiana under new coach Porter Moser.

“It’s a great campus and a great school,” said Gardner, who starred at the University of Arizona and played several years professionally overseas. “From the first interview I had there, I knew it would be a good situation for me to work under Porter Moser and learn from him.”

Gardner, 30, was an assistant coach last year at Cathedral High School. He was likely to take an assistant coaching position at Tech this year when the opportunity at Loyola materialized.

“It was great for me to get back and have a chance to be involved again with Indiana high school basketball,” he said. “But this was a good opportunity. With my competitive nature, I’d like to be a head coach at some point. But I know there’s still a lot to learn.”

The 5-foot-10 Gardner led North Central to the 1999 Class 4A state championship and was a second team All-American at Arizona as a senior in 2003.

Gardner is the second former Arizona standout guard to become a college assistant coach in the offseason. Damon Stoudamire joined the staff at Memphis, which is led by ex-Cat Josh Pastner. Pastner was an assistant at Arizona when Gardner played from 1999 to 2003.

Here’s another take on the hiring of Gardner from ESPNChicago.com, which includes this quote from Moser:

“I think there’s no question he’s going to be a star in this profession. As a player, he had an infectious, positive impact on any kid he was around. When I talked to coach Lute Olson and Josh Pastner, they said, ‘We’ve never had a player who had an impact on players like Jason Gardner did.’”