By Anthony Gimino
FOXSportsArizona.com
November 11, 2010
TUCSON -- There are the usual holidays in Tucson: Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, the Fourth of July, Selection Sunday, the fall letter-of-intent signing period ...
OK, those last two dates haven't been celebrated much in recent years.
Two years of interim head coaches, repeated mediocre seeds in the NCAA Tournament -- last year no postseason at all -- and mishmash recruiting classes have quieted the merriment around those two important basketball days.
But the key to having a great Selection Sunday is having a great signing period, and Arizona's newest class is the clearest sign yet that second-year coach Sean Miller is putting shiny new coats of paint on a faded program.
Miller and his staff signed the best recruiting class in the Pac-10 and ninth-best in the country, according to Scout.com. Individual rankings from the three-player class: Point guard Josiah Turner is the 24th-best prospect, combo guard Nick Johnson is No. 26 and forward Sidiki Johnson is No. 58.
"When I look at building our program and restoring the tradition and moving it in the right direction, today is very important," Miller said Thursday afternoon, talking publicly about the recruiting class for the first time.
"I think all three, as a class, is going to impact our future in a significant way. And they are talented enough that they will impact us a year from now in a significant way."
Miller put together a very good five-player class last season, but some of that -- forward Derrick Williams and point guard MoMo Jones -- luckily fell into his lap after they got out of their letter-of-intent following the dismissal of USC coach Tim Floyd.
This was the first class of players that Miller's crew was able to get on early, establish relationships with and then convince them to sign on the dotted line.
"You just don't sleep at night in terms of recruiting," Miller said. "It's the very most important thing you can do as a coaching staff, especially with the circumstances we had here. If this is a successful class, we want to build on it. We want this to be the starting point."
Now, Arizona has been down this road of high expectations before. Near the end of the Lute Olson era, several touted players didn't pan out as expected, and it was almost as if the roster was put together as if it were a fantasy team, with little regard for how the pieces fit together.
Miller and his staff, notably Book Richardson, who has been known as one of the best recruiters in the East, have proven to have a keen eye for talent. They won consistently at Xavier with guys not always in the center of the recruiting radar.
At Arizona, Miller can not only target his kind of players, but his kind of players who have elite physical skills.
Let's take a look at this group:
Nick Johnson. He's a 6-2 guard from Gilbert, Ariz., but is playing his second season for powerhouse Findlay Prep in Las Vegas. His father, Joey Johnson, is a former Arizona State basketball player who once held the world record by dunking with the rim at 11 feet, 7 inches. Nick gets his springy legs from his dad.
"Nick Johnson is someone we recruited almost from the very second I became the head coach here," Miller said.
"Nick is as explosive of a guard as I've seen. He can really jump off the floor. But he is way more than an athlete. I think he has great quickness. He can be a defender who will rival about any in the country as he learns the college game, and he has really continued to develop as an offensive player."
Sidiki Johnson. The 6-foot-8 forward was the first member of this class to commit to Arizona, and he's playing this season at powerhouse Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Va. Johnson, from the Bronx, N.Y., was at St. Benedict's Prep in Newark, N.J., last season, playing for coach Bob Hurley.
"He's an old-school power player in that he rolls his sleeve up, he's physical," Miller said.
"To me, he has a toughness about him. Right now, he weighs 230 pounds. I think he'll be a versatile forward, but yet physically, it's not as if he's coming in here needing a year to get bigger and stronger.
"We're counting on him to add much-needed size and durability around the basket."
Josiah Turner. He was the leading vote-getter on the venerable and prestigious Long Beach Press-Telegram Best in the West team. He is from Sacramento, Calif., and played on the standout Oakland Soldiers travel ball team with Nick Johnson.
"Josiah is a pure point guard," Miller said. "He's 6-foot-3. He's not 6-foot, he's not 5-10, and he really uses his height to his advantage. It helps him as a defender.
"He thinks pass. He really makes his teammates better, but he's a big, physical guard that impacts the game on both sides of the ball. ... We have recruited the point guard position hard since I've been here, and we've recruited someone who will do the Point Guard U. tradition very well."
All in all, this is exactly what Miller needed. This is the foundation class. It says Miller can recruit among the elite.
Top recruits often want to play with other top recruits. And when you get class after class of top recruits, that is when you have something special.
"Moving forward, this group of three can set the tone for what I hope is another great class a year from now," Miller said.
Mark the date. It could be a day worthy of celebrating for Arizona fans.
