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"&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;TUCSON, Ariz. \u2014 To relieve burdens, what better retreat than La Paz, Mexico, and its 80-degree gulf waters, a city promising tranquility in its very name. There, Kaleb Tarczewski spent the first weekend of June. He arrived by way of a flight to Cabo San Lucas and a three-hour drive north with Nick Johnson, his former Arizona basketball teammate who now plays with the NBA's Houston Rockets. When Tarczewski returned to Arizona, he would spend the rest of the summer on campus, tasked with anchoring a Final Four hopeful. But for those few days on the Baja peninsula, the senior 7-footer was adrift, the old man and the sea.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;They rented boats and hired a guide and set out. Tarczewski caught some mahi mahi. He hauled in red snapper and triggerfish. Bonito, too, which isn\u2019t anyone\u2019s ideal dinner but has redeeming qualities. \u201CIt fights pretty good,\u201D Tarczewski says. A tail of a hurricane blew in and rendered boating inadvisable on the last day, but everyone got what he needed. Tarczewski, in particular, could relax, floating on the water without a care, a respite before returning to a new role as Arizona\u2019s leader.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CI can lead by example and hopefully guide some of these younger guys through the process and make sure that they learn just as well as I did when I first got here,\u201D Tarczewski says, sitting in the Wildcats\u2019 players lounge after a recent group workout. \u201CIt\u2019s an opportunity for me to prove myself. I think in some aspects, I haven\u2019t really done a good job of that.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He joked that Mexico didn\u2019t offer a reprieve from southwest Arizona temperatures, but then the heat was always bound to be higher in Tucson anyway. After consecutive Elite Eight runs, the Wildcats lost their top four scorers. They did not lose Tarczewski, against some odds: He was the consensus No. 7 recruit of the Class of 2012 and is only one of two Top 10 players in that class still in college. (Kentucky\u2019s Alex Poythress, who tore his ACL during the 2013-14 season, is the other.) Though, truthfully, Tarczewski has been on a different path for a while now.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u2022 &lt;strong&gt;MORE CBB: Scouts offer candid takes on 50 NBA draft prospects&lt;/strong&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;By returning, he should become the first scholarship basketball player to earn a degree from Arizona\u2019s rugged Eller School of Business. He also is only 18 victories away from becoming the winningest player in the history of the program. The academics, of course, have been in Tarczewski\u2019s control. The same can\u2019t honestly be said of those 92 victories in three seasons, given the Wildcats\u2019 talent and Tarczewski\u2019s role as an important but complementary cog. He will be a driving force behind any Wildcats wins this winter, though, and that means he is focused on a summer of improvement\u2014refining both his offense and defense near the rim and becoming a more vocal leader.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CA lot of guys would have left two years ago, certainly this past year, that are in the same place as him,\u201D Arizona coach Sean Miller says. \u201CThe point is, it\u2019s not as if he hasn\u2019t matured or developed. It\u2019s just, he\u2019s more responsible when he thinks about leaving, and wants to be the most ready he can be.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;On a mid-week visit to the McKale Center, it was easy to identify evidence that Tarczewski is getting ready\u2014though just as easy to hedge bets on a 60-minute sample of individual drills in which managers whacking players with giant pads is the only defense played. Tarczewski is fluid for his size, with a nice touch, at one point making five of six one-dribble jumpers from the elbow. He hit four straight top-of-the-key three-pointers at another station before a drop-off, though he still made more than he missed over a minute of shooting.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;During a drill in which the players worked on seal-offs and finishes in the post, with those managers whacking away, Miller drove home the importance of converting that first shot attempt off the move. The more they make it, he said, the better Arizona is getting. Tarczewski was the first to go, and he established position, absorbed the blows from the managers, and dunked all three of his initial attempts.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He has not yet been a double-digit scorer, averaging 9.9 points as a sophomore and 9.3 as a junior. But Tarczewski is a career 56.8% shooter and his 1.037 points per possession ranked in the 91st percentile nationally last year, per Synergy Sports. His mentality in December must be the same as it was for a simple seal-and-score drill in June: He cannot wait for his turn. \u201CWe\u2019ve had such a good team, you have to understand your role,\u201D Tarczewski says. \u201CYou get put in a role sometimes. You have to be that guy that will go out there and do what you need to do to make the team win as much as it can. Coming back as a senior, hopefully my role will expand a bit and I\u2019ll be able to show a little more.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Those 15-footers are an example: Miller likes the shot even though Tarczewski spotted up on just 1.5% of possessions last season, per Synergy data. The Wildcats coach expects he can get another four or five points per game from his big man, a considerable leap given how any center depends on others to get him the ball in the right spot. But that leap demands more offensive initiative from Tarczewski, without constant prodding from the coaches.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Get deeper position on the block. (Tarczewski was at .903 PPP on post-ups last year.) Refine the jump hook and use it. Shoot that jumper when he has it. \u201CKaleb in one sense is able to continue to improve, but in another sense it\u2019s not like he\u2019s going to reinvent himself,\u201D Miller says. \u201CHe has shown the ability to shoot the ball, 15-footers, 12-footers, but (it\u2019s) shooting it regularly from Game 1. Sometimes it takes him eight or nine or 10 games and then you start to see it. All those things will let him be a primary scorer.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tarczewski also must keep his considerable emotions in check and avoid foul trouble or frustrations that compound early in games\u2014\u201CIf it takes away from him now, the difference is, it\u2019s going to affect the group a lot more than it has in the past,\u201D Miller says.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;After the season, Tarczewski consulted with family, with Miller, with other advisors. The stay-or-go dilemma was his toughest call to date, because Tarczewski grew aware that he was an anomaly. \u201CEveryone I came in with, everyone who really became my true friend, isn\u2019t here anymore,\u201D he says. Had he been informed during recruiting that he\u2019d spend the fall of 2015 in Tucson, and not in an NBA training camp, he concedes he would have been \u201Ca little iffy.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is no such second-guessing now. Publicly, this is only the second time Tarczewski has spoken about his reasons to return. The first was his news conference discussing the decision. Yet his conviction sounds rehearsed.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CI\u2019m going to bet on myself,\u201D Tarczewski says. \u201CI\u2019m going to say, if I come back, I\u2019m going to be able to help myself. I\u2019m going to be able to improve myself. I\u2019m going to be able to win a ton of games.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;To help with that endeavor, Arizona restocked with three five-star freshmen this winter, including guard Allonzo Trier, who will play for Miller on the USA Basketball Under-19 team this summer. But the responsibility to bring new parts together falls to the player who has seen nearly everything and came back for more.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u2022&amp;nbsp;\u200B&lt;strong&gt;MORE CBB: New Syracuse AD talks Boeheim&amp;nbsp;succession plan&lt;/strong&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;During that early June workout, Tarczewski seemed vigilant about this. He didn\u2019t provide a non-stop soundtrack of encouragement, but he was vocal in spots. He joked with assistants and managers to keep the mood bouncy. He offered a quick tutoring session to spindly 6\u201910\u201D freshman Chance Comanche about keeping arms up when battling for position to receive the ball in the post.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;No detail can be glossed over. No counsel is too minor to offer. Come April, Tarczewski doesn\u2019t get to come back again. He can\u2019t ride the waves, patiently detached. It\u2019s his ship now, for the first time.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CNo matter what, I don\u2019t have a second chance,\u201D Tarczewski says, \u201CI tried to make sure (coming back) was the decision I felt was best. I wanted it to be my decision. Because of that, I\u2019ve taken ownership of it. It\u2019s time to work.\u201D\r\n&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/college-basketball/2015/06/23/kaleb-tarczewski-arizona-wildcats-sean-miller>