While it was widely assumed Arizona men’s basketball forward Stanley Johnson would enter his name into the 2015 NBA Draft, Johnson met with the media on Thursday afternoon and made his decision official.
“This was definitely the toughest decision of my life but after a lot of deliberation with my family and my coaches, and praying, I’ve decided to enter my name in the 2015 NBA Draft,” Johnson said.
During his lone season at Arizona, Johnson led the team with a 13.8 points per game average and contributed 6.5 rebounds per game and 1.5 steals per game in 38 appearances.
Johnson helped lead the Wildcats to a 34-4 overall record, a second-straight Elite Eight appearance, a Pac-12 Championship and the program’s first Pac-12 Tournament Championship since the early 2000’s.
Arizona coach Sean Miller said Johnson will be missed, but is ready to play at the next level.
“This is always a bittersweet moment for me and I think for our program,” Miller said. “On one hand it’s incredibly exciting to see a young guy like Stanley go from where he was when he came here a year ago, to the NBA Draft. I have no doubt he’ll be a high draft pick and go on and have a long career that we’ll all be proud of.”
He said making his decision was not easy and there’s a lot of people who made this possible for him.
“I just want to start off by saying thanking god, my family, my friends, my teammates, my coaches, all the fans here at Arizona that have helped my first year experience go so well,” Johnson said. “You guys have made me feel very loved here,”
Johnson becomes the third Arizona starter in the past couple weeks to declare for the 2015 NBA Draft, but isn’t the last member to decide yet. Arizona center Kaleb Tarczewski is expected to announce his decision any day now.
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