Arizona basketball: Grad transfers Gettings, Hazzard offer unique skills
The Arizona Wildcats have the fab freshmen.
Point guard Nico Mannion is already projected as a lottery pick. Josh Green is a long, skilled small forward who also is considered a one-and-done first-rounder. Zeke Nnaji is a physically impressive 6-11 power forward who has the length and athleticism that Arizona lacked last season to check opposing top-flight stretch forwards. Christian Koloko is a 7-footer with upside.
That's all great.
I'm intrigued by the graduate transfers.
Power forward Stone Gettings and guard Max Hazzard are on-the-nose additions because each gives the Wildcats a piece to the puzzle that was missing during last season's slog to a 17-15 record.
Gettings, who arrived last winter from Cornell, has been the team's best 3-pointer at practice, said senior guard Dylan Smith.
"Stone can shoot it," Smith said. "Especially when he's confident. He could be one of the best shooters in the country."
Today we asked freshman Zeke Nnaji to sum up the culture Sean Miller has built at Arizona. Here’s what he had to say: pic.twitter.com/vVHdI7ZKTG
— Matt Moreno (@MattRMoreno) September 25, 2019
Gettings (6-9, 240) shot 36.8 percent from beyond the arc during the 2017-18 season, and 35.8 percent a year earlier. He averaged 16.7 points as a junior, scoring 39 points against Delaware, when he made 7 of 8 3-pointers.
"Stone is a skilled player on offense," said coach Sean Miller.
"As evidenced by what he did this preseason, he's a very hard worker, loves the game and you always look for diversity in a front line, so that not everybody is the same. In a different moment against a difference style of team, we have answers, we have tools that can play different styles. I would say Stone Gettings is the most different from the other frontcourt players that we have on our roster, and that is to his advantage."
Hazzard, after a standout career at UC Irvine, is also going to be a help from long range for an Arizona team that ranked eighth in the Pac-12 last season in 3-point percentage (33.6) and ninth in attempts.
The 6-foot Hazzard is a high-volume, fearless shooter who made 10 threes in a game last season.
"Obviously, I have confidence in my ability to shoot the ball," he said.
Hazzard will do more than shoot, because he's now the backup point guard to Mannion with sophomore Brandon Williams out for the season with a knee injury. Hazzard has played both guard positions in his career, although more at the shooting guard position.
"I have a ways to go to get better at it," Hazzard said of playing the point, "just because I feel like I'm a natural scorer. But, at my size, I have to have the ability to play the one as well, which I feel like I do. I've always played relatively fast. It's just about playing smart now."
Hazzard made 93 3-pointers last season. Nobody on Arizona made more than 44.
Hazzard, whose brother Jacob was a recent walk-on for the Wildcats, said Arizona was the first school to contact him after he entered the transfer portal after last season, when Irvine won the Big West Conference tournament and upset fourth-seeded Kansas State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
"Coach Miller was the first coach -- not just the first head coach, but coach in general -- to call me," Hazzard said. "I felt like I was really wanted here and could have a big role and help the team win."
Gettings and Hazzard will make their Arizona debuts Friday night at the Red-Blue Game at McKale Center. One change: The NCAA has pushed back the 3-point arc from 20 feet, nine inches to the international distance of 22 feet 1 3/4 inches.
That will make their range all the more important.
"In terms of shooting, I don't think it's that big of a difference," Hazzard said.
