Penalties make Miller's job harder

Last Updated on Sunday, 07 February 2010 02:10 Written by Brad Allis Sunday, 07 February 2010 01:55

Basketball Articles - Basketball General

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By now everyone knows that Arizona has self-imposed a series of sanctions in its men’s basketball program stemming from violations regarding the Cactus Classic, an on-campus AAU Tournament.

I won’t bog you down with what allegedly happened in and around the event. What is more important is how do these sanctions affect Sean Miller and his program?

We’ll take a look at the sanctions one by one.

Will relinquish one scholarship for the 2011‐12 academic year:

This is not problematic from an on-court standpoint. How many seasons have the Cats finished the season with a full compliment of scholarship players? You could say that the lost scholarship just means one less player to transfer that season.

Where it handcuffs the Cats is in recruiting. As it stands the Cats only have one scholarship available in the 2011 class, the one belonging to Jamelle Horne (assuming Dondre Wise’s is given this season.)

With the lost scholarship the Cats may not know what they have to offer until after the season. This could lead to them trying to stockpile a scholarship from this year’s class or having to hope that some end of the bench players leave the program prior to the start of the 2010-11 season so the Cats have a whole summer to try to add a player that will sign in November of 2010.

As of now the Wildcats have a 2011 player committed, Sidiki Johnson and Wise’s scholarship would be earmarked for him. Thanks to the penalty, the Cats do not currently have any available scholarships if they honor the verbal commitments of Johnson and Jordin Mayes.

Will reduce the number of days coaches are allowed to recruit for the next two seasons/reduce the number of coaches allowed to recruit off campus at one time for summer 2010 recruiting:

This penalty is tough to judge. If the Cats properly evaluate players and get in early with some players it will not hurt all that much. With the wealth of video available on prospects, the Cats should be able to get good evaluations of players in the days they are allowed on the road.

Where it hurts is in uncovering sleepers and in trying to show interested prospects attention. Sleepers can be uncovered at the spring and summer AAU events and sometimes the first few schools to show interest are the ones that land the players. This is how the Cats found players like Jordan Hill, Kirk Walters and Will Bynum are just a few players the Wildcats “discovered” in the spring and summer prior to their senior seasons.

This will not be an issue if the players the Cats have already evaluated stay interested. It will not be an issue if the Cat coaches budget the time they do spend on the road wisely. The vast majority of the players the Wildcats have recruited are “discovered” before their junior season or are late signees.

All three upperclassmen on the roster (counting third year player Alex Jacobson) committed early to the Cats. Wise committed as a fetus, okay prior to this sophomore season. Horne and Jacobson, both members of the 2007 class, committed in January 2006 and October 2005 respectively. In all three cases the group was committed well before the spring evaluation period of their senior years.

The fact is, the Cats have done much better with players who they began recruiting earlier. A much higher number of players they get in on late wind up transferring than the one’s who at least get interest from the Wildcats early on.

The second issue with missing days on the road is that they can’t be front and center to impress recruits. Half of the mission of summer recruiting is to show love to recruits, both the committed and the uncommitted. Even though the Wildcat staff could tell a player they do not have a coach on the road, unconsciously he may notice that coaches from the other schools courting him are in the stands while the Arizona coaches are not.

Will reduce the number of official campus visits allowed by prospects:

This to me is the most serious penalty. This means the Cats have to hit on a higher percentage of their visits. Normally a school gets 12 official visits, but the Cats will have less than that. This means the staff has to be very careful about who they invite for the visits. With a lower margin for error, they cannot take a flier on bringing in a player that they do not think they can land.

A lot of how the Cats try to strategize this penalty will depend on how severe it is. If the Cats lose a visit or two it may hardly matter as they do not appear to have a lot of open scholarships. However, if they lose 4-6 visits, then the staff really have their work cut out for them.

Anyway you look at it, the Miller staff will have to be even more organized and on top of things. They will have to plan better and make sure that they are fully prepared for two years at a recruiting disadvantage.