Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Arizona will consider redshirting an incoming guard

Kadeem Allen

Kadeem Allen (BlueDragonSports.com)

Arizona must be feeling okay on the perimeter this season if the reports are true. According to multiple reports, including Jason Bartel at SB Nation, the Wildcats and head coach Sean Miller are thinking about redshirting junior college transfer guard Kadeem Allen.

This wouldn’t normally be a rare occurrence for an incoming junior college player but the 6-foot-3 Allen is the reigning National Junior College Player of the Year.

After the win against Cal Poly Pomona on Sunday night, Miller explained Allen’s situation and he was rather straightforward about it to the press. Allen was the only scholarship player who didn’t play in the blowout win.

“We’re debating right now on potentially redshirting him,” Miller said about Allen after the game. “I know we could have played him and still redshirted him, but we’re working towards that. We don’t have to make that decision until Friday. But for the reasons that we decide to redshirt him, he can’t play in any regular season games.”

So, it seems like Allen is on a potential three-year plan in which he sits this year and plays the next two years since he wouldn’t get much burn this season. Considering the perimeter talent in front of him this season, that isn’t a bad idea for Allen -- or Arizona -- to consider.

Miller had even more to say on the topic:

“I think for Kadeem’s total career, and what we have on this year’s team, I think that if we didn’t redshirt him, we may not be putting him in the best position to be a really good player at Arizona, to leave with his degree and some things that could be very meaningful for him.”

“It’s not as if he’s lagging behind,” Miller continued. “It’s just that you can only play so many players and looking at the team that we have, one of these guys will get an extra year that they would have never gotten if we didn’t choose to do this.”


Allen averaged 25.9 points, 5.9 assists and 2.3 steals per game last season at Hutchinson Community College last season. If Arizona chooses to sit him, they’re saving guard depth for an additional season and banking on having enough for this season. We’ll see how this plays out.

Follow @phillipshoops