Arizona Wildcats: Top 30 athletes in school history
Jason Gardner was most famous for his time playing with the Arizona Wildcats basketball team.
Jason Gardner, originally for Indiana, played at guard for the University of Arizona for all four years (1999-2002). He played in 134 games, scoring a total of 1,984 points. Garder, only five-foot-ten, recorded 319 3-pointers, 462 rebounds, 622 assists and 225 steals. He frequently ranked in the top five in any of these categories in multiple years in the Pac-10.
As far as Pac-10 awards, Gardner earned the USBWA Freshman of the Year award in his freshman year and was a Consensus All-America (2nd Team) in his senior year. His team lost to Duke University in the 2001 NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Tournament. In 2005, the University of Arizona retired his jersey in 2005.
Although Gardner wasn’t drafted into the NBA, probably because of his size, he found success overseas. He played internationally for eight seasons in countries such as Belgium, Slovenia, and Israel, and became a two-time all-star in Germany with EWE Baskets Oldenburg. After retiring from playing, he found an assistant coaching job at the Loyola University of Chicago and two years later, joined fellow Arizona Wildcat teammate Josh Pastner‘s coaching staff in Memphis in 2013. Pastner had coached under Lute Olson at Arizona for eight seasons.
Coaching just one season in Memphis, Gardner was named the head coach at IUPUI (Indiana Univerity – Purdue Univeristy Indianapolis) in 2013. He has been a head coach at Purdue for two seasons and counting.
Next: Chris McAlister - Football