Goodman: Arizona basketball’s 2020-21 roster ‘completely underwhelming’
Apr 15, 2020, 8:40 AM
Arizona coach Sean Miller reacts to a play call during the first half of the team's NCAA college basketball game against Oregon on Saturday, March 2, 2019, in Eugene, Ore. (AP Photo/Chris Pietsch)
(AP Photo/Chris Pietsch)
The Arizona Wildcats are used to overhauling a roster year-to-year.
That’s the reality of Sean Miller on average recruiting multiple five-star prospects a year, a good percentage of whom go to the NBA Draft after one season.
That’s happening again this year, with freshmen Nico Mannion, Zeke Nnaji and Josh Green all declaring. The trio is all graded in the first round by most draft experts, meaning they are all likely to not return to school.
No big deal, as Miller usually has a strong crop of past and present high-level recruits to fill in the gaps.
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But this year is not the case, and the lack of standout prospects coming in is hurt further by a crop of seniors graduating as well.
“They’re struggling right now, in terms of again, their roster if you look at it right now is completely underwhelming today,” Stadium’s Jeff Goodman told Arizona Sports’ Burns & Gambo on Tuesday.
Of Arizona’s top players in minutes per game for 2019-20, seven of the eight are set to leave the program via either graduation or the draft.
Sophomore guard Jemarl Baker Jr., a transfer who joined UA last year from Kentucky, is the only one returning.
Junior big man Ira Lee will also contribute and so could point guard Brandon Williams, who sat out all of 2019-20 while battling a chronic knee issue.
But beyond that, the big additions are uncharacteristically going to be college-experienced players.
“Their best players are probably their transfers, they are,” Goodman said.
Former five-star power forward Jordan Brown is eligible for next season after sitting out a year, and also coming in will be grad transfer and senior guard Terrell Brown from Seattle.
Point guard James Akinjo, a transfer from Georgetown, will be eligible for the second semester of the school year as well.
There’s also the duo of four-star wings Dalen Terry and Bennedict Mathurin that make up the entirety of Miller’s ‘meh’ 2020 recruiting class.
That adds up to eight players, not including freshman big Christian Koloko, so the bodies are there. The top-end skill that Miller had in bunches the last decade, though, is not.
On top of that, the corruption scandal still looms over the program too.
“We’ll see what happens,” Goodman said. “The NCAA investigation is obviously going to be telling.”
