Sean Miller's recruitment of players in the 2016 class has not gotten off to a very good start as he has yet to receive a commitment and has had a recruit de-commit from his school in T.J. Leaf, a consensus top fifteen recruit. Arizona has been a powerhouse since Miller got there and will likely be fine in the long run, though, as they are the favorite to land top-50 recruit Andrew Jones and now have their sights set on international recruit Lauri Markkanen. Markkanen has his list of schools down to three and has scheduled official visits to all three schools, including Arizona. All three schools will reportedly also be coming to Finland to meet with him, according to Evan Daniels of Scout.com.
North Carolina and Utah join Arizona as the final three schools on the final list of schools with a chance to scoop up the 6-foot-11 power forward. Markkanen will have his official visits with all three schools in the middle of October with Arizona being the last one scheduled on Oct. 16. As of right now, the experts believe that Markkanen will commit to Arizona when all is said and done, according to 247 Sports.
Many websites don't rank international players the way they rank players from the U.S., but 247 Sports has him as the number 21 prospect in the nation while Scout says that if he were from the U.S., he would be a five-star recruit which would put him in the top 30.
Markkanen played for Finland's under 18 team this past summer at the FIBA European Championships and was extremely impressive as he averaged 18.2 points and 6.3 rebounds per game. Markkanen is an extremely mobile big man with tremendous touch and great hands that can also step outside and knock down jump shots. Markkanen could do work both inside and outside and should be able to adapt quickly to play at the Division I level.
Sean Miller hasn't had a recruiting class ranked worse than sixth since 2011, and even though his recruitment of 2016 players hasn't started great, he will likely land on his feet. Markkanen still has to take his official visits, but if Miller can land both him and Jones like he is expected to, then Arizona will be in great shape to bring in another top ten class in 2016.