UA basketball: On Stoudamire's jersey, charity and chemistry

But even though Stoudamire is the programs’ sixth leading scorer and third-leading assist leader of alltime -- and a two-time all-American -- he doesn’t qualify under UA’s current criteria for jersey retirement. UA essentially says players have to be a national “something” of-the year.

Of the UA jersey retirees, Terry and Sean Elliott were national players of the year, Steve Kerr was most courageous, Mike Bibby was national freshman of the year and Jason Gardner was a freshman of the year and the 6-foot-under player of the year.

“By the criteria you want to judge a player by, you can make the argument that Jason Terry and Damon are two that deserve it,” UA coach Sean Miller said during his weekly news conference today. “But that’s a topic of discussion for another day. When you see McKale you have to do things in stages and anytime you talk about retiring or honoring jerseys there’s so many players that are deserving of these accolades.

“Let me just say there’s nothing more important to me than honoring the past the right way, because our past and the transition at Arizona is second to none.”

Miller said he realized Stoudamire did not meet the current criteria but indicated he wouldn’t mind if the process was revisited at some point.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if we have a committee in the future when we try to reassess who’s up there and how to go about it, almost how to reorganize it so that the people who are honored are honored in a more significant way.”

After earning $10,000 for the Ronald McDonald House of Southern Arizona last season – but just missing the “Final Four” – Miller is back in the Infiniti Coaches Charity challenge this season.

“I’m at the mercy of the voters. I don’t have a lot to do with whether I win or lose,” Miller said. “But the charity we chose is the Ronald McDonald House of Southern Arizona and the proceeds go to that house which is amazing, the impact that it cane make on the families. That house is really significant.

“It’s not like you’re voting for me as your voting and giving toward that charity.”

Fans can vote at the challenge's official site. The Ronald McDonald House has a page devoted to the effort here.

Rondae Hollis-Jefferson said the Wildcats’ chemistry is “100 percent better” after the ASU-UA game than it was at the beginning of the season, and Miller essentially agreed.

For that game, at least.

“I’ll judge our chemistry on Jan. 4 -- that’s when we played Arizona State -- and then I’ll do it all over again the next day and on the sixth,” Miller said. “Because it only takes one day and you can go from having this tight knit group that will go on vacation together to disarray. There’s just so many people tugging and pulling and there’s so much selfishness at the core of college basketball, that you don’t have chemistry for long periods of time. You have to work at it every day.”

The Wildcats will leave for Oregon on Wednesday and won’t return until early Monday morning after playing OSU on Sunday night, but it’s the only extended (two days between games) Pac-12 road trip of the season.

All of UA’s two-game conference road trips were extended last season, essentially taking the Wildcats out of town (and class) for nearly five days.

“It’s a good thing for our players,” Miller said of this season’s schedule. “Anytime you don’t miss school, that’s a good thing. Attending class just helps. I credit the Pac-12, the cooperation between the coaches and the Pac-12 front office to recognizing that it’s something that if we put our minds around it we can help it, and we have.

“As a coaching group it’s nice to see because we didn’t have to give television up and everybody understands the new TV model but I think with just a little more cooperation and hard work we’ve made traveling a little more realistic this year than last year. It’s great to see.”

No UA players were made available for comment during this week's news conference.