Jason Terry: Very grateful, very thankful to have number retired at Arizona
Feb 19, 2015, 12:45 AM | Updated: 12:54 am
PHOENIX — Only four others have had such an honor bestowed upon them.
Jason Terry makes five.
A member of Arizona’s 1997 national championship team and winner of the 1999 National Player of the Year, Terry will have his No. 31 jersey retired when the Wildcats host USC Thursday.
“It’s more for the people that helped me along my journey. Huge accomplishment. Just very grateful, very thankful,” he said last week when his Houston Rockets visited the Phoenix Suns.
Terry joins Mike Bibby (10), Jason Gardner (22), Steve Kerr (25) and Sean Elliott (32) as former players to have their numbers hang from the rafters inside McKale Center.
Terry was a consensus first-team All-American and earned National Player of the Year honors from Sports Illustrated, CBS and Basketball times as a senior in 1999 after averaging 21.9 points, 5.5 assists and 2.8 steals per game.
For his career, he averaged 11.3 points, 3.8 assists and 1.9 steals in 129 games, becoming the first player in school history to score 1,000 points and record 200 steals.
“Well, there were two for me,” said Terry, when asked about his favorite UA memories. “(The) ’97 National Championship game, obviously. Messing Lute’s (head coach Lute Olson) hair up; realizing what that meant to him and his legacy was amazing. And then the other one was my senior year, Stanford was ranked No. 1. I hit the game-winning shot and jumped up on the scorer’s table and held my sister, who was about five years old, in my arms and celebrated like there was no tomorrow.”
Terry said he plans to have his entire family in attendance for his return to Tucson.
“It’s always special for me,” he said. “It takes you down memory lane. The many hours that you spent, not only practicing and during the games, but when nobody was even in the gym and it was just you and the guy rebounding for you. Those are very memorable moments. Something you’ll never forget.”
Terry still holds the UA record with 245 steals, while he ranks fourth in 3-point field goals (193), eighth in assists (493) and 18th in scoring (1,461) now some 16 years after leaving.
“Not much has changed,” he said. “They still have a phenomenal basketball program. Coach (Sean) Miller is doing an outstanding job and we’re ranked high, and that’s where the Wildcats should always be.”
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