He may not be a top-100 player, but Arizona did not "settle" for MoMo Jones.

After the Wildcats lost out on three McDonald’s All-Americans in the past two weeks, many Arizona Wildcat basketball fans were stressing. Many felt that this meant that Sean Miller could not attract big time recruits and would have to settle for “projects”.

Fans on message boards, call-in shows and even my e-mail in-box felt that the Cats were reaching for lesser players. This just isn’t the case.

While it is true the Cats have failed to land a big time, game-ready, elite prospect, they certainly are not settling for players who are not solid prospects. In fact, Lute Olson’s last few teams “settled” far more than Miller has.

Miller’s first recruiting class featured four players in ESPN’s top-100. The only player who was not an ESPN top-100 player was MoMo Jones. Jones was a Rivals top-100 player and was recruited by the likes of Louisville, Florida, Memphis and USC among many others.

The rest of the class were all top-100 according to ESPN:

Kyryl Natyazhko #39

Solomon Hill #54

Derrick Williams #72 

Kevin Parrom #86

All of these players were recruited by elite programs. While none of them were top-25 players, or as highly ranked as Doron Lamb, Josh Selby or Ray McCallum, they were hardly borderline prospects headed to low majors had Arizona not swooped in and offered them a scholarship.

This year’s class is not quite as highly rated, but again, not full of slouches. Daniel Bejarano is a top 100 player, albeit rated #92 by ESPN. Jordin Mayes just missed the top-100, but Rivals tabbed him as #106. Mayes had offers from BC, Cal and Oklahoma among others.

JUCO transfer Jesse Perry was not eligible for the top-100 but had offers from a host of Big 12 and SEC schools.

Compare these two classes to the last few Lute Olson classes and you’ll see that Lute attracted a few more “elite” players but a lot more “reaches”. The 2008 class is a strange one. The school originally signed four players, three of whom were top-100 but when the smoke cleared, only two of those players arrived on campus and only the non-top-100 player (Brendan Lavender) every played a game for Arizona.

Because of the defections of Brandon Jennings and Emmanuel Negedu, the Cats had to scramble and took in Kyle Fogg, Garland Judkins and D.J. Shumpert. Of those only Fogg is still on the roster.

Some of the other reaches in the Olson era include Alex Jacobson, Kirk Walters, Daniel Dillon and Chris Dunn. The Cats also signed non top-100 players who did little in an Arizona uniform such as Zane Johnson, Jesus Verdejo and Laval-Lucas Perry.

It must be noted that standouts Nic Wise and Jordan Hill were not top-100 players, while guys like Chris Rodgers, Fendi Onobun and Jamelle Horne were all top-75 prospects who had less than illustrious Arizona careers.

Miller has yet to land a top-25 prospect, and to truly return Arizona to the national elite he will have to land some of these players, but he is still landing quality recruits. Five of his seven prep signees have been top-100 players, and the two who weren’t still had their share of top-notch suitors.

Brendan Lavender played in the 2007 Cactus Classic

So what do you get for $197,000, a handful of sanctions and the tarnishing of the image of Lute Olson and the Arizona basketball program?

Kyle Fogg.

Of all of the fallout from the Cactus Classic is the realization that the tournament actually did little good for the program. The tournament actually failed to land most of the top tier prospects to Arizona and at the time the sanctions are announced, just one player who is on campus because of the event is contributing.

I know what you are thinking, “didn’t Jamelle Horne, Brendan Lavender and Alex Jacobson play in the Cactus Classic?” Yes they did, but the tournament was not the reason they chose Arizona.

Of the players currently on the roster, six played in one of the Cactus Classics. Four more players who signed with Arizona but are no longer on the team also played in the event.

Let’s take a look at the players and what impact the tournament really had on their recruitment:

Kyle Fogg – Fogg was “discovered” at the tournament by Wildcat assistants Russ Pennell and Mike Dunlap who were at the tournament even though the NCAA included them as part of their list of allegations. Although the tournament was during a dead period, neither coach was “technically” employed by a D-I school, though both had been offered jobs by Lute Olson and were thought to have accepted them, though Dunlap told the NCAA he had not decided whether to accept the position. The real irony is that Fogg was being trained by Kyle Dodd, a former Pennell player while he was a coach at ASU. Fogg was offered a scholarship, in large part, because of how well he played at the 2008 Cactus Classic.

Derrick Williams – Williams played in the 2008 Cactus Classic as well, but really wasn’t a UA target at the time. It is hard to say that the event had any role in his decision to commit to Arizona as he only looked at the Wildcats after he originally signed with USC.

Brendon Lavender – Lavender was already verbally committed to the Wildcats when he played in the 2007 Cactus Classic. He grew up a Wildcat fan and had already taken unofficial visits to Tucson before ever playing in the event.

Jamelle Horne – Was already committed before playing in the 2006 Cactus Classic.

Solomon Hill – This may be the toughest to judge. Hill was already very interested in Arizona before playing in the 2008 Cactus Classic, but admitted that he loved everything about the campus after playing in the tournament.

Alex Jacobson – Jacobson was already committed before playing in the 2006 Cactus Classic.

Zane Johnson – Johnson had been on Arizona’s radar long before playing in the Cactus Classic and had made unofficial visits to Tucson prior to his participation in any of the Cactus Classic events.

Jeff Withey – Withey made at least two unofficial visits to Tucson outside of his trips to the Cactus Classic. He played in two Arizona Elite Camps (more on that event later) and was being recruited by the Wildcats since his freshman year. He actually verballed to Louisville first but only broke that pledge when he felt Rick Pitino was over recruiting at his position. He’s now at Kansas after never playing a game for the Wildcats.

Garland Judkins – Another player who was discovered at the Cactus Classic. Judkins was going to head to prep school before his impressive play that spring led to him being offered a scholarship by the Wildcats.

Brandon Jennings – Jennings shocked the recruiting world when he committed to Arizona just days after the 2007 Cactus Classic. He was able to make an unofficial visit with the Wildcat staff the day after his Belmont Shore team lost in the finals of the event.

This story may have taken on a completely different slant if Lute Olson had not retired. The Wildcats had three players committed before Olson retired in 2008 and all three participated in the 2008 Cactus Classic, of those three (Hill, Mike Moser and Abdul Gaddy), only Gaddy was committed before the event.

The Cats lost out on a lot of players at the Classic, including some of their top recruiting targets like Gary Johnson, Demar Derozan, Luke Babbitt, James Harden, Jrue Holiday, Terrence Jennings, Jordan Hamilton, Avery Bradley, Keith Gallon, Peyton Siva, David and Travis Wear, Hollis Thompson and Jeremy Tyler, just to name a few.

The sad irony of all of this is that another far more kosher event on campus was actually responsible for more players who made an impact at Arizona to commit or to even get offered a scholarship. Arizona signed 15 players in the 1006, 2007 and 2008 recruiting classes and of those 15 players, at least eight participated in the Lute Olson Advanced Skills Camp a.k.a. the Arizona Elite Camp. 

Chase Budinger, Jerryd Bayless, Laval Lucas Perry, Horne, Zane Johnson, Alex Jacobson, Brandon Jennings and Withey all played in the elite camp, as did Daniel Bejarano, a player signed for 2010.

To learn how the proposed sanctios will affect Sean Miller and the current Wildcat staff, see the companion story on WildcatSportsReport.com.