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.

Of course the main reason for the press conference was to announce Cole and Jeannie Davis’ $2.6 donation, but it was also where Miller announced that he and his wife were donating $250,000 to the project. Miller was literally putting his money where his mouth is. He was telling the current players that they need to be as committed as he is, as well as telling recruits that he is not going anywhere.

It was also a chance to sell the project to the public. In these tough economic times, it can be a tough sell to spruce up a locker room and build a state of the art gym, when one already exists inside McKale.

Miller cited everything from safety, to academics, to recruiting, to reaching out to former players in his sales pitch. At the same time he was challenging his players in the classroom, inviting the former players home and telling recruits what was in store.

Of course, increased performance was the key to the weight room.

“I want us to be the biggest, strongest, best conditioned team,” Miller said.

The presser was a chance to tell his team that more hard work was needed and that they’d be given the tools to get better. He was telling recruits that better days were ahead and that the program was going to continue to evolve. He was telling the former players that they were wanted and that they should come back home. Most of all, he was telling the fans that the program was moving in the right, winning direction.

Miller could have thanked the Davises, made a brief statement and then moved on to other topics but he didn’t. He took the opportunity to do some PR, make some points and attempt to accomplish many things at once.

For a more detailed account of the press conference, as well as some other basketball team notes, see the accompanying story at WildcatSportsReport.com

Rick Faust/WildcatSportsReport.com

From the outside looking in it seeems to me that Sean Miller has two options play for today or prepare for tomorrow.

While making the NCAA Tournament is tough, it is not an impossibility. The Cats would need to win 10 or 11 down the stretch to get into the tournament and it appears that the only way that is going to happen is if Sean Miller shortens his bench.

The Wildcats played with just eight players against UCLA and played their best game of the season. For the final 25 minutes against USC the Cats also played with an eight-man rotation and nearly came back against the Trojans.

It seems to me that the Wildcats’ best chance at getting those wins and making a push at the tourney is to shorten the bench.

The Cats’ starting line-up of Jamelle Horne, Derrick Williams, Solomon Hill, Kyle Fogg and Nic Wise may lack height but is a strong group. It seems as if it can fare favorably with most in the Pac-10 as the players are talented and versatile, if inconsistent.

The bench is even more inconsistent. If Miller wants to really make a push for No. 26 he should go to the bench a lot less. He’s been going with rotations that have gone nine, 10 and even 11 players deep.

As of now the best combination seems to be Kevin Parrom as the wing off the bench, with whoever is practicing better between Kyryl Natyazhko and Alex Jacobson in the post and the Brendan Lavender and MoMo Jones splitting minutes as the third guard.

While that line-up may be best for making a push this season, it does not bode well for the future. The Cats need to get guys minutes and in-game work. Odds are the Cats will need significant contributions from Natyazhko, Jones and the other next season, but right now they are struggling. Do you trim minutes form more solid performers in hopes of getting some wins or do you keep making sure guys like Jones and Natyazhko get in-game action, even if they struggle?

Rick Faust/WildcatSportsReport.com

It’s not an easy decision and one reason Miller makes upwards of a million dollars a year.

If it was me I’d use the next three or four games as a litmus test for the shortened bench. If the Cats can rattle off some wins and get into a position to make a push at the tournament then I think you have to do it. However, if a shortened bench does not produce right away, then I think Miller has to go all out and prepare for next year. This means seeing if Jones and Fogg are capable of playing to point, possibly sliding Wise to the off guard so he can still showcase his scoring for the pros. This means seeing just what Lavender, Jacobson and DJ Shumpert are capable of and whether  they have a chance to be rotation players in the future or whether they are destined to be role players.

They have to get Natyazhko minutes and hope that at some point things start to click.

It’s a delicate time for Wildcat basketball. No one wants to play for next season, but at the same time no one mortgage the future for current success that may or may not happen.

Credit Vanderbilt. The Commodores kept adjusting all game long and finally found some strategies for which Sean Miller’s young charges had no answer. It’s not that Miller couldn’t think of the proper tactics, it was pretty apparent the team is not vested enough into the system to have a lot of the offense and defense implemented. Give the Cats a few more weeks and they might have had an answer.

One thing Vanderbilt was able to do is throw larger, athletic players at Nic Wise. It was very similar to what Lute Olson used to do with Michael Dickerson and Richard Jefferson. Both of those players were quick enough that they could keep up with fast point guards, but long enough that they really disrupted the passing lanes and made it tough for the shorter players to shoot. The good news is that I am not sure how many players in the Pac-10 have both the size and supreme quickness to stymie Wise.

Derrick Williams and Solomon Hill are legit. They both have a lot to learn and are far from finished products, but both players could have cracked the rotation on just about every Lute Olson team. The same can’t be said about MoMo Jones and Kyryl Natyazhko. Both are talented and seemed poised to have great Wildcat careers, both are probably playing bigger roles than ideally they should. Jones is ahead of Kyryl, but still has a lot to learn about running the offense and making good decision. Natyazhko just doesn’t have a good feel for the game. He is often out of position and is still building up his fundamentals.

Does anyone care about the ASU/UA football game? They hype for this game is at a recent low. A good part of that has to do with the fact that ASU fans just do not care about this football team. The Devils will suffer their second losing season in a row, the first time that has happened since the 1940’s, and they do not play a very interesting brand of football. Offensively they are a train wreck and a pretty good defense is not putting butts in the seats at Sun Devil Stadium. Add to that, the fact that Arizona still has an upcoming game against USC and you have a game that is slow in building the hype.

While he hasn’t said much, you have to assume that Nic Foles is amped up to play the Sun Devils. He was essentially forced out after verbally committing to Dirk Koetter before he was fired. While Foles seems thrilled with how things have worked out you can bet he’d like to show Dennis Erickson that he made a mistake. My guess is that Foles eclipses the 300-yard mark.

A number of callers to the 1290 postgame show which I co-host were upset that the Wildcat offense went conservative late in the loss to Oregon. After a fourth down stop with about 6:00 to play, the Cats picked up one first down, but needed two more to ice the game. The Ducks got the ball back and the rest was history. While there is some validity to the feeling that the Cats were two conservative, many of those same fans were upset in both the Washington and Cal games that the Cats were throwing late. You can’t have it both ways.

It was a pretty nice recruiting haul for the football team over the weekend. They landed three defensive linemen. One, Muhamed Usman, is a junior college player who originally verballed to Houston out of high school Willie Mobley is at a junior college right now, but is not playing and is essentially transfer from Ohio State, the school he played for as a true freshman. The third is a sleeper from Northern California who does not have a lot of hype, but there are some who have seen him who think he has a chance to really surprise. The Cats quickly bolstered a group that loses two key starters and has a number of upperclassmen.

When it came time for his post game comments, both to the radio audience and the collected media a few minutes later, Sean Miller did not talk about the Cats’ 16 turnovers or the fact that they got out-rebounded. He did not talk about the Cats letting an 18-point lead dwindle down to 6. He didn’t even heap any praise on his players. Instead he praised the Zona Zoo student section. 

Courtesy WildcatSportsReport.com

“I would like to personally, on behalf of our team, thank them,” Miller said during his post game press conference. “One of the things that helped our start defensively was how ferocious our crowd was. Anyone who was in the building will understand that our students were almost like another defender out there early on.”

Miller took time during the week to open practice to the student body and actually orchestrated the “boink, pass, brick” chant for the students to use during the first four minutes of each half.

A few people questioned why Miller was worried about the students, when admittedly the team still has a ton to learn and was just days away from the Maui Classic. I had one person ask me if Miller was not detail oriented. I argue that it was exactly the opposite. Miller is supremely detail oriented and knows that for the long-term success of the program he needs McKale to become a true home court advantage.

“There has never been an Arizona team that needs McKale to be at a heightened environment like this team,” Miller explained.

 While the students were very good, they still left upwards of 1,000 seats open. Miller’s comments, in my opinion, were not only to give thanks to the students who did show up, but to try and get the section full.

The student section has been inconsistent for years. When it is full, it is as good as any in the nation, but all too often tickets are left. Lute Olson courted the students (as well as the community as a whole) when he first took the job, and then years later fought to get the student section consolidated into the single section it is today.

You get the feeling that while Miller is worried about winning games today, he is also keeping an eye on the future. Almost all of the great programs have strong student sections. The fact that much of the McKale crowd is older means that the students will be even more vital in making it a loud, crazy place.

Taking the time this week, from practice to the post game interviews, was clearly a calculated move.

But hardly his only one.

While my exposure to Miller has been limited to about a dozen press conferences, I get the impression that he is straight forward and honest, but at the same time calculating in his comments. It appears that he has certain things he wants to convey in each press session.

That is most clear as he echoes many of the same sentiments in his post game interview with Brian Jeffries as he does when dealing with the collected media.

Case in point, he made it clear that Kyryl Natyazhko’s poor performance against Rice was not indicative of what he has shown in practice. He made sure to praise the freshman center’s talent and potential. 

Rick Faust/WildcatSportsReport.com

He has taken similar stances with other players. When dealing with Nic Wise, all of Miller’s comments are those of respect and admiration. When asked about a between the legs pass, Miller said, “I think he’s earned the right to make that play.”

Miller had to re-recruit Wise and I am sure part of that process was to convince Wise that he was going to be “his guy” and get to run the show. Giving him respect seems to be part of that process.

Conversely, when talking about Jamelle Horne Miller goes out of way to praise his ability and hard work. It seems as Miller is trying to keep Horne motivated, through positive reinforcement. Miller seems acutely aware that Horne was Kevin O’Neill’s whipping boy two years ago and had bouts of last confidence at times last year.

Miller seems to be trying to avoid Kevin Parrom losing confidence. Although the freshman will not play for at least a month, Miller has mentioned him in a number of press conferences, making sure to stress that Parrom is still a vital cog to the team.

You see this with other players as well. He has made sure to praise Kyle Fogg and MoMo Jones, hyped Solomon Hill’s basketball I.Q. and improved conditioning and has told anyone who will listen that Derrick Williams and Natyazhko will be better players in February than they are now.

Overall, Miller comes off as a straight shooter, but one who clearly knows what he wants to convey every time he opens his mouth.