York sees himself in Simon, who's struggling for minutes

It was Thanksgiving, not too long after the Wildcats narrowly beat Santa Clara in overtime, but Simon — the mother of UA freshman guard Justin Simon — wasn’t looking all that thankful.

“I could tell,” York said, “she was upset.”

York knew the feeling.

Three years earlier, York — then a freshman — would hang his head and wonder about his future at Arizona. If he had one at all.

The biggest statistic from York’s freshman season came in the DNP-CD column. That is, “Did Not Play, Coaches Decision.” All told, York spent 20 games warming up the bench, seeing only garbage time in the rest of Arizona’s games. In the NCAA Tournament, he played four total minutes in three games.

The outside voices kept getting louder.

Gabe, why aren’t you playing?

You’re too good to sit on the bench.

Why aren’t you playing? Gabe, why aren’t you playing?

It was like one of those Beats by Dre commercials, where the athlete drowns out criticism with noise-canceling headphones.

“It’s definitely hard to block all of that out,” York said. “I didn’t really have anybody. I sort of had to go through that and learn the hard way.”

Now it’s 2016, and York has certainly come out on the other side. He hit a game-winning 3-pointer against California and tied an Arizona record with nine threes against Stanford to close out the regular season. He was an All-Pac-12 selection this year, averaging 15.2 points per game.

Justin Simon has had a front-row seat to all of that. The freshman guard has played in just four of the UA’s last 10 games, totaling 15 minutes of game time.

“It’s been a learning process for me,” Simon said. “You see things differently when you’re just watching.”

Simon didn’t think it’d be like this. He was rated a five-star recruit by Scout.com coming out of Brewster Academy in New Hampshire, a 6-foot-5-inch guard with a nearly 7-foot wingspan. He had offers from everyone.

Simon picked Arizona, even though he knew the Wildcats’ roster included guards York, Parker Jackson-Cartwright, Kadeem Allen and, eventually, top recruit Allonzo Trier.

Outside of a few early season games — he played 16 minutes against Missouri, 18 against Northern Arizona and 16 against both Washington and Washington State in January — Simon hasn’t left the bench much. When he plays, it’s typically with the game in hand.

So, Justin, why aren’t you playing?

Why aren’t you playing?

Why aren’t you playing, Justin?

You’re too good not to play, Justin.

“It’s always like that, but you have to ignore the noise,” Simon said. “Just go out there and keep playing. It’s like that for a lot of people. You could go anywhere you want to, but you never know until you arrive how it’s going to be.

“I’ve loved every second I’ve been at Arizona,” he added, “and I’m just moving forward, playing, taking it day by day, practice by practice, game by game.”

There wasn’t a hint of pessimism in his voice, and it’s pretty rare to find Simon without a smile on his face.

If there was a nickel for every time an Arizona player talked about “honoring the process,” we’d all be rich.

But that’s what Simon is doing, with some help from York. So when York found Simon’s mother wandering around the hotel in Fullerton, he pulled her aside.

“I just told her, ‘Look, you have to understand there’s a bigger picture. They recruited Justin for a reason. They didn’t recruit him for him to come here and sit down,’” York said.

“For me personally, what I had to realize (as a freshman) is that it’s not my time right now. We have great basketball players here.”

The wisdom of a senior got through to Simon, too.

“I told him, ‘You don’t see what I had to go through, because you see what I’m doing now. Everything is going to be fine. Stay the course and keep going.”

It took York three years to get to where he is now, a progression from an underclassman reserve to a key cog in Arizona’s 2016 machine.

Simon’s path might be a similar one.

Two five-star guards — Rawle Alkins and Kobi Simmons — have committed to the UA for 2016-17, and their talent suggests they’ll take touches, and minutes, from players like Simon. Simon will have the advantage of a year in an Arizona uniform, and the confidence to show he can play at this level.

York will be gone, but his message will ring clear.

“Gabe’s been through some things that I’ve been through,” Simon said. “You just fight through it, and give them a reason to play you, and don’t give them a reason to not play you.

“He’s been a really good mentor for me, and a good leader for us. Just looking at all his success he’s had this year just makes me look forward to my future. As Coach said, my better days are ahead of me, so I’m going to honor the process and believe in that.”