by The GM on January 30 at 7:57PM
In the first installment of this series, I want to showcase Jerryd Bayless. Since I am a huge Arizona Wildcats fan and Bayless is the starting point guard for the Arizona Wildcats, I figured he would be my first subject.Bayless, from Phoenix, Arizona, almost wasn't a Wildcat. He had verbally committed to Arizona and then said he was opening up his recruitment right before the summer. Lute Olson knew that Bayless was a special recruit. Ranked in the top 10 by most recruiting services, Bayless averaged 37.8 points a game for St. Mary's High School. He also was named Arizona Republic's "Big School Player of the Year."
With the awards stacked up, the young point guard was named to the U.S Under-18 team, where he averaged 11 points a game. Washington coach Lorenzo Romar was the head coach of that team.
Bayless is leading Arizona in scoring so far this season with an average of 19.9 points per game. He also leads the team in assists (4.6) and free-throw percentage (86.1). Bayless has a great shooting touch as well. He is shooting 45.7% from three-point range and 48.5% overall from the floor.
The team has shown just how important Bayless is. He missed four games due to an injury and Arizona lost three of those four. In the five games since Bayless has returned, Arizona has only lost one game (at Stanford 56-52).
Arizona has been known to produce talented guards. Like former Arizona star, Gilbert Arenas, Bayless chose to wear the number 0 on his jersey. Arenas chose the number because he was told he had zero potential to play by several schools...guess they were wrong on that one! I think it is safe to say that Bayless has more than lived up to his hype and maybe he wears 0 to let us know how good he can become.
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jerryd bayless is the rawest nigga i seen play in a while, hes virtually unstoppable i love watching him play