When launching a recruiting tour of up to five schools this month, highly regarded Chandler point guard Alex Barcello figured he’d just go until he found something that felt right.
Which meant it was all over after about only 24 hours in Tucson.
Halfway through his official visit to Arizona, the four-star guard at Tempe’s Corona Del Sol High School announced via Twitter on late Friday afternoon that he would play for the Wildcats starting in 2017-18.
The 6-foot-2-inch, 175-pound senior will become Arizona’s first in-state scholarship freshman since Nick Johnson arrived from Gilbert via Nevada’s Findlay Prep in 2011.
“I didn’t want to waste any coach’s time so I told myself, `When I know it’s right, I’m gonna commit,’ “ Barcello said by phone Friday night. “I just felt like this was the perfect fit for me. With coach (Sean) Miller recruiting me to be their point guard, I felt like there was nowhere better to be.”
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But even though Barcello says he’s blessed to be able to play for a school near home, the Wildcats didn’t necessarily have a geographic advantage for him. Barcello says he didn’t grow up an avid fan of UA, ASU or even the Suns, though he did take in a few games of each team, and his other college finalists were scattered all over the country: Stanford, Butler, Virginia and Indiana.
Instead, what sold Barcello was not just the Arizona coaches but also the players. Barcello said he spent time with several players during a dinner at Miller’s house on Thursday, asking them how they liked it at UA, then took a campus tour and watched a practice on Friday.
“I just felt today being on campus, it was a great environment,” Barcello said.
It was the latest in the Wildcats’ increasingly focused efforts to convince Barcello to be their point guard of the future. UA offered Barcello a scholarship as a sophomore at Corona Del Sol, where he won state titles as a freshman and sophomore, then made him a top priority this summer when his hustling, all-around play on the prestigious Nike EYBL circuit this summer rose high-major eyebrows.
“He really improved over the spring and summer,” Scout.com analyst Josh Gershon said. “It was pretty clear Arizona really wanted him at the end.”
It was especially clear to Barcello, who wound up making his decision just over a month after the summer recruiting season ended. He visited Butler and Stanford earlier this month, but never made official visits to Indiana and Virginia.
“When (Arizona) first offered me, they told me they’d watch and see me develop,” Barcello said. “But once they saw me with the Oakland Soldiers in the EYBL they started recruiting me hard. I’ve been in constant contact with coach Miller and the staff. All the pieces fell into place.”
Talent probably wasn’t only what drew UA to Barcello. He also shares the same kind of high-intensity drive that Miller has.
“I’ve seen a lot of great point guards at Arizona, being tough, being a great defensive player and giving 100 percent every time,” Barcello said. “That’s really what coach Miller wants – just give it your all and play hard. He wants to win and I want to win. I want to get to a Final Four and win a national championship.”
While Barcello has a stature and intensity similar to former UA point guard T.J. McConnell, he is more of a scorer at heart. Yet he also knows how to set up others, playing this summer with the talented Soldiers club and having won a state title at Corona Del Sol in 2015 with forward Marvin Bagley, who is arguably the top class of 2018 player in the nation.
“Barcello’s mentality is that he’s still more scorer than passer but he has it in him. He’s a good passer,” Gershon said. “I think being around good coaches and good players, he’s going to have a good combination of scoring and creating. He can do both.
“He’s known as a good kid, a high-character guy who works very hard and loves basketball. He’s just the kind of guy you want in your program. If you’re Arizona, he’s a piece of your puzzle for four years.”
For now, Barcello is not only a piece of the 2017 recruiting class but maybe a catalyst for it. UA coach Sean Miller said this week he hopes to sign multiple players during the fall signing period, after having signed only Finnish forward Lauri Markkanen last fall.
Having just Markkanen on board early meant Arizona needed to scramble all spring to fill out its 2016-17 roster with high-level talent.
Bruce Pascoe
Reporter
Bruce is a veteran Star sports reporter who has also worked at the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He graduated from Northwestern University and has an MBA from Thunderbird.
