At the age of 16, Gilbert committed to play basketball at the University of Arizona after his first choice, UCLA, had passed on him. During his freshman year, he scored 20 points in his first game against UCLA, just like he tourced his former high school. He only chose the Arizona Wildcats because a scholarship was available after another player backed out of his commitment. When he arrived at college, basketball coach Lute Olsen said he was “17 going on 12.” When asked to choose a jersey number, Gilbert chose jersey number “0″ because of the many doubters who told him that was that amount of minutes he would see on a top ranked college basketball team.

He finished his freshman year with an average of 15.4 points per game and Arizona entered the NCAA tournament as a number one seed, despite the fact that many of their star players were injured. In 2001, during his sophomore year, Gilbert led his team in scoring (16.2) and to a final four appearance in the NCAA tournament before losing to Duke, 82-72. On the plane ride back, teammate Richard Jefferson announced his intention to leave for the NBA. Arenas had never seriously thought about leaving for the NBA until then…