If freshman guard Gabe York had timed his arrival to the Arizona Wildcats a year earlier, life might be different.
Entering last season, the Wildcats had lost point guard MoMo Jones and Daniel Bejarano to transfers.
They had Kyle Fogg and Brendon Lavender at shooting guard but Lavender had yet to have an improved senior season.
At point guard, sophomore Jordin Mayes was coming off foot surgery and freshman Josiah Turner would quickly prove a bust.
There was opportunity in the backcourt. But the only newcomer around to take advantage of it was freshman Nick Johnson, who averaged 28.1 minutes and started 28 of 35 games.
This season, where York arrived as a Top 75 recruit with the ability to score in bunches, minutes were scarcer. The Wildcats lost Fogg, but received surprise spring addition Mark Lyons. They lost Turner, but that was a case of addition by subtraction.
Johnson and Mayes are back, while the Wildcats are going bigger, not needing shooting guards at small forward (as they often did with Fogg last season) and even using forward Kevin Parrom at small forward.
York has played in only 8 of 12 games, and averaged just 6.3 minutes a game.
Basically, he’s the 10th man in a nine-man rotation.
“It has been difficult,” York said during the Diamond Head Classic last weekend.
“I’ve been doing everything I possibly can just to get as many minutes as I can on the floor. Obviously, I’ve got great players in front of me.”
Read more about the freshman guard in Saturday's Arizona Daily Star.
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