Nearly 20 years after he led the Wildcats to the 1997 national championship, Miles Simon will get his jersey on the McKale Center wall, thanks to the school's revised criteria for the honor.
Simon was the MVP of the 1997 Final Four but was previously ineligible to have his jersey retired because the old criteria only allowed for players named to some sort of national season-long honor.
(FWIW, UA is now calling the honor a "jersey recognition" instead of a "jersey retirement." The school's policy has always been to retire jerseys -- not numbers -- though numbers of recently departed stars were informally avoided during the Lute Olson era.)
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"We are regularly evaluating our criteria for these types of recognitions," Arizona AD Greg Byrne said via text message, "and the committee recently decided that a student-athlete who is named Most Outstanding Player at an NCAA Division I championship for men's basketball, women's basketball or volleyball could be eligible to have their jersey recognized."
The jersey retirement standards have long been a topic of conversation at Arizona, so much so that even UA coach Sean Miller carefully noted in January 2015 that Jason Terry and then-assistant Damon Stoudamire could be argued as having deserved the honor.
Terry qualified for the honor because he was named national player of the year by three media outlets in 1999, but his jersey was not retired until February 2015 because UA made an agreement with the Pac-10 to ban him from its Sports Hall of Fame and any jersey retirement as a penalty for having accepted improper benefits from an agent while at UA.
But Terry repaid the $45,363 in forfeited NCAA tournament revenue resulting from the NCAA findings, and UA later decided to retire his jersey, then successfully sought to clear the change with the Pac-12.
Stoudamire still doesn't have a jersey hanging at McKale Center -- despite being a consensus all-American in 1994-95, having led the Wildcats to the 1994 Final Four, and having his name all over the program record books -- because he did not win a national honor of any sort during the regular season or NCAA tournament.
Of course, there's a number of other former UA standouts who could be part of the argument, too.
"Anytime you talk about retiring or honoring jerseys there’s so many players that are deserving of these accolades," Miller said in 2015.
As of now, UA has five former players with jerseys hanging at McKale: Terry, Steve Kerr (for receiving a most courageous award in 1986), Sean Elliott (national player of the year in 1989), Mike Bibby (1997 Basketball Weekly freshman of the year) and Jason Gardner (2000 freshman of the year by multiple outlets).
Miller confirmed Wednesday that Talbott Denny has indeed torn his ACL and his out for the season.
A Tucson native, Denny transferred this summer after he graduated from Lipscomb and had been expected to be a top practice player and reserve forward. He will instead likely receive a waiver that would allow him to play in 2016-17 while working toward a UA graduate degree.
“It’s unfortunate,” Miller said. “Being able to have him around this year would be great but getting him back for his sixth year would allow him to finish grad school and do some of the things we had hoped he’d be able to do this year.”
NCAA rules allow athletes a maximum of five years to play out their four seasons of eligibility, and Denny will have reached that limit after next spring despite having played only three seasons. However, waivers are granted to extend the eligibility “clock" to six years if the athlete does not play for two years for reasons that are not under his control; Denny also sat out in 2015-16 because of a torn labrum.
UA posted its official 2016-17 roster on Wednesday. Among items that may be of interest:
-- Ray Smith's weight went from 180 when he arrived in 2015 to 220 pounds.
-- Allonzo Trier went from 6-4 and 190 upon arriving to 6-5 and 205.
-- Parker Jackson-Cartwright went from 5-10 a year ago to 5-11 while Chance Comanche grew from 6-10 to 6-11.
-- Walk-on guard Trey Mason is no longer on the roster. Miller said Mason will continue at UA as a student but will not play. Mason appeared in 19 games over his freshman and sophomore years but did not see game action last season.
"Trey will be returning to the university to complete his education, but will not be participating in the basketball program," Miller said. "We wish him nothing but the best."
