Future Arizona Wildcat commits can earn plenty of playing time, starter roles in 2018-19

Devonaire Doutrive is planning to sign with the Arizona Wildcats on Wednesday, which will make him a pioneer of sorts.

The four-star combo guard from Southern California will be the first player to sign with Arizona in the wake of a federal investigation and an ESPN report that have resulted in the Wildcats’ first three commits backing out.

“If it just so happens Devonaire was the first to cross the picket line, so be it,” said Laurian Watkins, Doutrive’s legal guardian. “Maybe it opens up some doors. Sometimes those setbacks lead to opportunities.”

Arizona has plenty of open doors. Six spots still remain on the roster for next season, making the spring signing period that opens Wednesday the most critical for coach Sean Miller since he took over a near-empty roster in April 2009.

But Watkins, who also works out youth basketball players in the San Fernando Valley, said he’s convinced the Wildcats can fill their 2018-19 roster well with freshmen and graduate transfers who are looking for an immediate opportunity.

“There are just so many different ways now of being able to find players who can fill voids,” he said.

Miller just has to work around the federal investigation — which resulted in the arrest and eventual firing of UA assistant coach Book Richardson — and the ESPN report saying he discussed a pay-for-play scheme, a report Miller has denied.

While Miller has been unavailable for comment since UA lost to Buffalo on March 15, here are some ways he can sell the Wildcats to other recruits:

One reason Miller was able to land former USC commits Derrick Williams and MoMo Jones in June 2009 was the opportunity to make an immediate impact, and both players took advantage. Jones became a significant factor as a freshman, while Williams became a starter in his second game and kept rising until Minnesota made him the No. 2 pick in the 2011 NBA Draft.

The opportunities are similar for next season, and Watkins said that was an appeal for Doutrive, who could earn significant minutes at both guard spots next season.

UA returns no returning starters and while wings such as Dylan Smith, Brandon Randolph and Emmanuel Akot all played significant roles last season, none are guaranteed to start.

Point guard and center are particularly wide open, with Alex Barcello the only true point guard and the 6-foot-10-inch Chase Jeter the only player taller than 6-8 as of now. That’s one reason why UA has arranged to bring in California point guard James Akinjo and Lithuanian big man Lukas Kisunas for official recruiting visits next week.

NCAA president Mark Emmert told the Los Angeles Times last month that the NCAA will not investigate the schools involved in the federal investigation until FBI officials have concluded their investigative process. The feds may be months (or years) away from doing that, meaning the NCAA might not be in a position to hand down any potential sanctions until at least 2019 or 2020.

That’s another reason grad transfers such as Old Dominion forward Trey Porter, Albany guard Joe Cremo and Evansville guard Ryan Taylor might consider the Wildcats: Not only will they have an opportunity, but their one-year stay is unlikely to be interrupted by any sanctions.

“They are recruiting grad transfers very heavily,” said Josh Gershon, a Southern California-based national recruiting analyst for 247 Sports. “All they can do right now is fill the roster with a handful of grad transfers and the best high school players who aren’t reaches.

“They’re still trying to make the most out of what they can, though there’s going to be some difficulty with how late it is in the recruiting cycle.”

Miller denounced the ESPN report on March 1, saying he had done nothing wrong. While ESPN said he had discussed paying Deandre Ayton $100,000 with agent Christian Dawkins, it changed the timeline of that discussion three times, and Miller said he had no such conversation with Dawkins.

Moreover, while Miller sat out Arizona’s Feb. 24 game at Oregon a day after the ESPN report, Ayton did not. An attorney hired by UA to conduct an independent investigation said Ayton had consistently maintained that he didn’t receive any financial incentive to attend the school and that “not a shred of evidence” had been found otherwise.

In addition, while schools such as USC and Louisville have issued lengthy suspensions as a result of the federal probe, UA has not. The school did suspend assistant coach Mark Phelps for two games and forward Keanu Pinder for one at the beginning of the season, though it would not specify which rules (and a public-records request returned no specifics).

Watkins said all of that behavior suggests UA believes it did nothing wrong.

“If there was something going on with those players, they would have sat them out,” Watkins said. “If (reports) are saying he took money, or this happened and that happened but he never missed a game? … That stuff just is what it is.”

Federal officials made it clear at their Sept. 26 press conference that their investigation would continue — and get wider.

Then, just before the NCAA Tournament, ESPN said that up to three dozen Division I programs could face NCAA violations because of the probe while Yahoo Sports wrote that “the breadth of potential NCAA rules violations uncovered is wide enough to fundamentally and indelibly alter the sport of college basketball.”

And just Tuesday, both Kansas and N.C. State were publicly roped into the federal probe.

So, if all of this is true, where are the safe havens in college basketball?

Nick Halic, Doutrive’s coach at Birmingham High School, said the NCAA “would have to sanction half of their schools” if it all blows up, while Watkins said he didn’t think there was a single “squeaky clean” program in the country.

With no major-league pro teams within 100 miles of them, the Wildcats continue to enjoy a rare combination of a million-plus population and not a lot of competition for attention. That means McKale Center tends to fill up, with both the school and community taking the program and its players seriously.

Watkins said he’s known that since he played against Gilbert Arenas in high school and knew Arenas was big-time — because he received an offer to play for the Wildcats.

“One thing about Arizona, regardless of what was is going on: Arizona is a basketball school and a basketball place,” Watkins said. “The support is the same, the experience the same and the fan base is always gonna be tremendous. Having that real college experience, that’s something we knew Devonaire would have.”