The Arizona basketball team is hoping at least one more player decides to leave the team before the new school year.
Freshman guard Daniel Bejarano announced Monday he was transferring, which drops the Wildcats scholarships to 13. Unfortunately for coach Sean Miller, the program only has 12 to give because of NCAA sanctions.
The school has already promised scholarships to recruits Josiah Turner, Nick Johnson, Sidiki Johnson and Angelo Chol, which brings the number to 13.
According to the Arizona Daily Star, the Wildcats do have some options. Junior center Alex Jacobson is supposed to graduate at the end of this semester and could finish his career at another institution while completing grad school. Fellow sophomore center Kyryl Natyazhko has an opportunity to play overseas.
Or, of course, Miller could flip a coin and ask a seldom used player to find another bench to sit on.
Certainly, Arizona's situation is not unique. Usually around this time of year coaches find themselves balancing scholarships while anticipating player defections and moves to the NBA and bringing in a new recruiting class.
Arizona may have overestimated the number of defections from its team at the end of the year with relation to four new recruits. The Wildcats had just one senior on this year's roster and sophomore Derrick Williams decided to leave school early for the NBA.
The goal for Sean Miller and his staff now is to make sure that no matter how the extra scholarship room is made, the program doesn't take a publicity hit like New Mexico did a year ago.
Last May, New Mexico sophomore Will Brown sensed he was on the outs with the program to make room for Tennessee transfer Emmanuel Negedu, so he penned a letter to the Albuquerque Journal pleading fans to take up his fight and keep him on the team and more importantly on scholarship.
Brown's pleas were all for not. The school announced that Brown would not be returning for the 2010-11 season due to "repeated violations of team policy." He had had some off-court issues, which made him an easy choice. The ironic thing about it is that Negedu played just 10 games last season and was ultimately ruled medically ineligible to participate and forced to retire.
Coach John Calipari did something similar when when he took over at Kentucky and seven players transferred from former coach Billy Gillespie's team, and former Missouri coach Mike Anderson told Tyler Stone and Miguel Paul to find another place to play to make room for a couple junior college transfers.
Arizona can only hope that it doesn't have to run anyone off to fix its scholarship dilemma; that Jacobson can pursue his basketball and education somewhere else or that Natyazhko can make a career overseas. Otherwise it's going to find itself among a host of schools that haven't honored their scholarship commitments.
Teri Hatcher Lauren Bush Natalie Zea Brody Dalle Taryn Manning
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