Ready to Rumble: Arenas blooms in desert, finds place with Wildcats

 

By Chris Umpierre
Daily Bruin Staff

Two years ago, an unheralded recruit from North Hollywood took
it upon himself to visit the UCLA campus and see about joining the
basketball team the following year.

UCLA, which was loaded at shooting guard, wasn’t
interested in offering the recruit a scholarship.

The player’s name? Current Arizona star and preseason
All-American Gilbert Arenas.

“I visited on my own and one of the coaches there told me
they were waiting for (blue chip recruit) Carlos Boozer to
sign,” said Arenas, who added he wanted to be a Bruin while
growing up. “That’s okay with me.

  Arizona Sports Info Wildcat sophomore guard
Gilbert Arenas has found success at Arizona after
not being recruited by UCLA. Any school like that will go after the
McDonald’s All-Americans first.”

It looks like Arenas got the last laugh. UCLA eventually lost
Boozer to Duke and Arenas has gone on to be a pain in the
you-know-what for the Bruins at Arizona.

After a spectacular freshman year with the Wildcats in which he
earned Pac-10 All-Freshman first-team honors, the 6-foot-3
sophomore is averaging 15 points a game and has been influential in
leading Arizona to a 17-6 record and No. 8 national ranking.

Arenas, who holds no resentment towards the school that rejected
him, has stuck it to the Bruins in his three career games against
UCLA. He is averaging 21 points in three Wildcat wins against his
hometown school.

The shooting guard had a tremendous senior year at Grant High
School in Van Nuys, in which he averaged 34 points and eight
rebounds a game. His dominating play led Grant head coach Howard
Levine to say, “He’s the best offensive player
that’s been in this Valley, maybe forever.”

Despite finishing as Grant High’s all-time leading scorer,
Arenas only received offers from DePaul, Kansas State and
Arizona.

“Nobody really knew me coming out of high school,”
he said. “Everybody pays attention to the big names. I was in
the small North Hollywood area.”

UCLA says it knew about Arenas, but academics were an issue.
UCLA uses a higher standard for student-athletes than most schools
and at the time, didn’t know if Arenas had the grades to get
admitted.

In addition, there are just too many quality players in the Los
Angeles area for UCLA to get every single one. College teams have
just 12 scholarships to give out.

“It’s going to be easier sometimes for an outside
team to come to L.A .and get players than it is for an LA team to
go in Kansas’ backyard or North Carolina’s backyard and
pick off one of their great players,” Bruin assistant coach
Steve Spencer said. “The volume of (quality) players that are
in a Chicago, a New York, or an LA is just so many.

“(Arenas) is a great player that we didn’t get for
whatever reason.”

While Arenas has blossomed into one of the nation’s top
shooting guards, UCLA has been plagued by inconsistent play at the
shooting guard position the last two years.

With no clear cut starter UCLA head coach Steve Lavin has
inserted Ray Young, Billy Knight, Rico Hines and Jason Flowers at
the off-guard the last two seasons. Some nights he gets a big game
from the shooting guard, but for the most part Lavin doesn’t
know what to expect.

Young, a McDonald’s High School All-American, has shown
flashes of brilliance but mostly hasn’t met expectations.
He’s averaging just 9 points a game and is currently coming
off the bench.

Knight, the current starter, rarely played his first two years
and has just recently begun to produce in this, his junior,
season.

“We like the team we have,” assistant coach Jim Saia
said. “We wouldn’t trade our players for
anybody.”

According to Arenas, the issue of UCLA’s failure to
recruit him out of high school is moot.

“Coming out of high school, if the choice was between UCLA
and Arizona I think I would have chose Arizona just because
it’s away from home and it’s in a different
environment,” he said.

The unlucky soul that gets to guard the likely All-American in
tonight’s game is UCLA guard Billy Knight, who is expected to
make his third straight start at shooting guard.

He’ll guard an athletic guard who has excellent one-on-one
skills with the ability to drive to the basket or pull up with a
deep jumper.

“Arenas is dangerous as heck,” Spencer said.
“He’s definitely a guy that’s got a great shot of
being a heck of a player in the NBA. To me he’s a lot like
Michael Dickerson but maybe even a little quicker.”

Dickerson, who starred at Arizona in the mid-90s, is in the NBA
with the Vancouver Grizzlies.

Knight, primarily known for his three-point shooting, rarely
played his first three years in Westwood because he was a defensive
liability. After putting in a lot of hours working on his defense
over the summer he says he’s up for the challenge.

“Gilbert is quick, sort of like Ray (Young),” Knight
said. “I’ve been guarding Ray in practice. So I’m
just going to act like he’s Ray and do what I do everyday
(against Young in practice). Try to stay in front of him,
don’t let him drive or get open shots.”

Staying in front of Arenas is something UCLA has yet to do. In
last season’s trip to Los Angeles, he was named Pac-10 Player
of the Week after he burned the Bruins and the Trojans by averaging
20 points on a scintillating 59 percent shooting. Recently, he was
influential in Arizona’s second half romp over UCLA. He
dropped 22 points, leading Arizona to an 88-63 blowout win.

Arenas is happy to be returning to the LA area.

“I’m excited to be going home,” he said.
“I haven’t been there since the summer. It’s
going to be fun.”