How transfers have fared after leaving Arizona in Sean Miller era

The Arizona Wildcats have seen three players transfer out of the program in the last calendar year, starting with Omar Thielemans (Milwaukee) just before the 2018-19 season, continuing with Emmanuel Akot (Boise State) during and ending with Devonaire Doutrive (undecided) after.

Before they begin their college basketball careers elsewhere, we took a look at how outgoing transfers in the Sean Miller era have fared at their new schools.

Note: for this exercise we did not include players who transferred to a non-Division I level like Elliott Pitts or players who went pro after announcing their transfer like Josiah Turner, who initially chose to attend to SMU before declaring for the NBA Draft.

Garland Judkins, Texas A&M Corpus-Christi

Arizona stats (2008-10): 2.1 PPG, 0.9 RPG, 1.0 APG, 41.9 FG%, 20.0 3PT%, 65.0 FT%

Post-Arizona stats (2010-11): 6.4 PPG, 1.9 RPG, 1.6 APG, 41.9 FG%, 23.3 3PT%, 71.7 FT%

Judkins was part of the last Arizona recruiting class that Lute Olson was involved with, coming on in the summer before the 2008-09 season as a last-minute replacement for Brandon Jennings after he opted to play pro ball in Italy. The 6-foot-4 point guard started four games as a freshman for interim coach Russ Pennell but ended up being suspended three times that year, the last indefinitely.

Miller reinstated him but Judkins only appeared in six games, averaging 4.3 minutes, before deciding to transfer at midseason. He was initially expected to go to UTSA but the Houston native ended up going to Texas A&M-CC where he started 26 games in one season with the Islanders.

Daniel Bejarano, Colorado State

Arizona stats (2010-11): 0.8 PPG, 0.5 RPG, 12.5 FG%, 12.5 3PT%, 75.0 FT%

Post-Arizona stats (2012-15): 11.2 PPG, 6.9 RPG, 2.3 APG, 36.7% FG, 33.4% 3-pt FG, 75.2% FT

A 4-star recruit from Phoenix, Bejarano was the highest-rated player in Arizona’ 2010 class but he couldn’t get on the court during his lone season with the Wildcats. The 6-foot-5 guard played in only eight games, none after the first weekend of Pac-12 play, before finally announcing his transfer a few weeks after UA fell in the Elite Eight to UConn.

Bejarano ended up at Colorado State, where after sitting out a year started 67 games including all 65 as a junior and senior. He averaged 16.3 points per game as a junior and scored at least 20 points on 15 occasions.

MoMo Jones, Iona

Arizona stats (2009-11): 8.3 PPG, 1.7 RPG, 2.1 APG, 41.8 FG%, 26.5 3PT%, 79.0 FT%

Post-Arizona stats (2011-13): 19.2 PPG, 3.1 RPG, 3.1 APG, 44.7 FG%, 33.2 3PT%, 85.9 FT%

One of three USC recruits that Arizona swooped in to grab after the Tim Floyd/OJ Mayo scandal at USC, Jones was a huge part of the Wildcats’ Elite Eight run during his sophomore year in 2010-11. The 6-foot point guard started all 38 games and was the second-leading scorer, dropping 16 points in the Sweet 16 beatdown of Duke.

But after that season he opted to leave Tucson to move closer to his sick grandmother in New York City. Nearby Iona benefitted greatly from adding a floor leader with power-conference experience as he led the Gaels to back-to-back NCAA tournament. As a senior he averaged 22.6 points per game, third-best in Division I, and was the MAAC Player of the Year.

Sidiki Johnson, Providence

Arizona stats (2011-12): 0.3 PPG, 0.7 RPG, 0.3 BPG, 00.0 FG%, 50.0 FT%

Post-Arizona stats (2012-13): 3.9 PPG, 5.1 RPG, 0.8 BPG, 35.4 FG%, 31.0 FT%

Johnson was one of Sean Miller’s first recruits at Arizona, committing to the program in August 2009, only four months after Miller was brought in from Xavier.

However, the former four-star recruit lasted all of three games at Arizona before being suspended indefinitely for violating team rules and eventually transferred out of the program, failing to complete a single semester at the UA.

Johnson landed at Providence where it was more of the same. He appeared in 13 games before leaving the program for personal reasons and never played another minute of Division I basketball.

Not only that, he was sentenced to four years in prison for second degree attempted robbery and third degree robbery.

Angelo Chol, San Diego State

Arizona stats (2011-13): 2.4 PPG, 2.2 RPG, 0.1 APG, 51.7 FG%, 66.0 FT%

Post-Arizona stats (2014-16): 4.1 PPG, 3.1 RPG, 0.3 APG, 51.9 FG%, 58.9 FT%

The No. 59 player in the 2012 recruiting class, Chol ended his prep career in San Diego with the second-most blocked shots in national high school history. The 6-foot-9 forward swatted 29 for Arizona as a freshman, impressive since he only played 12.2 minutes per game off the bench, but his minutes dropped to 8.5 per game as a sophomore with the arrival of Brandon Ashley, Grant Jerrett and Kaleb Tarczewski to the frontcourt.

A transfer back to his hometown seemed like the best move for Chol, but after sitting out the 2013-14 season he continued to be a physical specimen without any semblance of an offensive game. He started nine games for SDSU as a senior but still couldn’t log more than 13 minutes per contest.

Craig Victor, LSU

Arizona stats (2014-15): 3.1 PPG, 1.1 RPG, 61.5 FG%, 52.9 FT%

Post-Arizona stats (2015-17): 11.2 PPG, 6.2 RPG, 1.1 SPG, 44.2 FG%, 62.5 FT%

The No. 41 player in the 2014 class, Victor hardly played in his freshman season at Arizona, stuck behind big men like Tarczewski, Ashley, Matt Korcheck, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and Dusan Ristic. It didn’t help that Victor was also suspended for a game. Seeing the writing on the wall, Victor transferred at the semester break, opting to return to his home state and enroll at LSU.

Victor was eligible to play in the spring semester of the 2015-16 season, and immediately provided a boost for the Tigers, scoring in double figures in 13 of his first 14 games. But instead of building on a solid sophomore season, he was suspended for the first three games of his junior season for violating team rules. He returned for eight games, but then was dismissed from the program for another violation of team rules.

Victor declared for the 2017 NBA Draft and signed in the G League after going undrafted. It is unclear where he is now.

Justin Simon, St. John’s

Arizona stats (2015-16): 2.3 PPG, 1.2 RPG, 0.3 APG, 0.3 SPG, 50.0 FG%, 42.9 FT%

Post-Arizona stats (2017-19): 11.3 PPG, 6.1 RPG, 4.1 APG, 2.0 SPG, 46.8 FG%, 35.1 3PT%, 63.8 FT%

The No. 33 recruit in the 2015 class, Simon found playing time hard to come by in his freshman season at Arizona, with guards like Allonzo Trier, Kadeem Allen, Gabe York and Parker Jackson-Cartwright ahead of him in the pecking order.

Arizona then added Kobi Simmons and Rawle Alkins into the mix the following season, and instead of risking being out of the rotation again, Simon took his talents to the Big Apple to join St. John’s.

It was a wise move. The Temecula, Calif. native started in 66 of the 67 games he appeared in in two seasons with the Red Storm, filling up the stat sheet as a do-everything combo guard. Simon’s best contributions came on the defensive end of the court, where the 6-foot-5 swingman rated as one of the best perimeter defenders in college basketball.

With help from Simon, St. John’s reached the NCAA Tournament in 2019 for the first time since 2015.

Had Simon stayed at Arizona, he would have been a junior on the 2017-18 team that had stars like Alkins, Trier and Deandre Ayton, but sorely lacked a lockdown defender on the perimeter. Oh, what could have been.

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