Arizona Wildcats
* Record: 20-2 (8-1 in Pac-12) * AP ranking: 6 * NCAA RPI: 4 * Best win: 66-63 over Gonzaga, still the Zags’ only loss of the year * Worst loss: 58-56 at Oregon State * Best stat: Though none of the top seven Wildcats averages as much as 80 percent at the foul line, neither do any of them hit less than 65 percent, so fouling them down the stretch of a close game could prove problematic. * Difference maker: Coach Sean Miller has a bunch of them, but senior guard TJ McConnell is Arizona’s most indispensable player, averaging nine points, 3.9 rebounds, 5.8 assists and 2.2 steals. Easily one of the top five point guards nationally. * Reason to doubt: For all of McConnell’s brilliance, he’s made just 65 percent of his free throws. Arizona has dropped regional final heartbreakers two of the past four seasons to Connecticut and Wisconsin. Such inconsistency at the stripe could cost them again. * Will be trendy in Indy at the Final Four if … The Cactus Cats don’t have one of those nights when they can’t hit from outside and freshman forward Stanley Johnson’s play doesn’t go down rather than up before the eyes of March. * Prediction: Elite Eight * Coachspeak: “The physicality of the game got to us. We got out-rebounded terribly. Their athleticism really hurt us there.” — Oregon’s Dana Altman after an 80-62 home loss to Arizona in January
According to two NBA draft boards this week — NBADraft.net and DraftExpress — no fewer than four Arizona Wildcats can expect to be taken in either the first or second round this June.
But it’s the Cactus Cat the NBA isn’t talking about who could have everyone talking about the nation’s currently sixth-ranked team during the NCAA tournament.
“(T.J.) McConnell is my player of the year,” Oregon State coach Wayne Tinkle said this past weekend after watching the Wildcats dismantle his visiting Beavers 57-34, thanks partly to McConnell’s eight steals. “He is everything to his team.”
Added sixth-year Zona coach Sean Miller after hearing Tinkle’s remarks: “He does it in all facets of the game, he does it every day and he’s the only guy that nobody talks about playing in the NBA (among the top Wildcats). I have no idea why he can’t play in the NBA. I know he can.”
Whether he can or not, McConnell certainly has had a stunning career since transferring from Duquesne after his sophomore year — the 2011-12 season. Forced to sit out the following year as a transfer, McConnell quarterbacked Arizona to 33 wins last season and has them 20-2 overall and 8-1 within the Pac-12 heading into Saturday’s trip to archrival Arizona State.
His stat line to date — 9 points, 5.8 assists, 3.9 rebounds and 2.2 steals per game — might be the most complete for a point guard in Division I. And he is only 6-foot-1 with moderate speed.
“You can come to a lot of games in McKale [Center] for the next 50 years,” Miller said after the Oregon State win, “and very seldom will you see a player have eight steals in one game, and he only played 30 minutes. He was dominant on the defensive end.”
With power forward Brandon Ashley returning nicely from a broken foot that sidelined him for last year’s NCAA tourney and freshman Stanley Johnson looking more and more like the best rookie in the country other than Duke big man Jahlil Okafor, Zona is beginning to dominate everyone on its schedule.
Its last three games have been decided by an average of 26.7 points; its last five by an average of 21.
And while the Pac-12 hasn’t shown much depth — Jerry Palm currently has the league ranked sixth with only three projected NCAA tourney bids — Arizona avenged its one league loss at Oregon State with a 23-point beatdown in a slowdown game and spanked current No. 13 Utah by 18 (69-51).
“Arizona is really aggressive, which pushed us into taking shots we’re not comfortable with,” Oregon State guard Malcolm Duvivier said Friday. “We couldn’t get the ball in the rim tonight even though we were getting people in positions to score.”
Noted Cal guard Jordan Mathews after a 73-50 home loss to the Cactus Cats: “Arizona is sound. They don’t gamble defensively. They’re just sound.”
They’ve been sound ever since Miller arrived from Xavier with a withering defensive style and efficient offensive sets. They won 30 games during the 2010-11 season before losing to eventual national champ Connecticut in a regional final. After winning 33 games a year ago, they fell to Wisconsin in another regional final.
If this team has an edge on that team, it may be that it really appears to have no weaknesses, blessed with size (four players 6-7 or better, including 7-0 Kaleb Tarczewski in the starting lineup), experience (a senior and two juniors start) and talent: 6-7 wings Johnson and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson are both seen as NBA first-rounders, with Johnson among the top five.
Miller’s Cats also appear to be appropriately humble and hungry to deliver the program’s first Final Four berth since 2001.
“We want to put ourselves in the best position to be a No. 1 seed in the tournament,” Johnson told USA Today last week. “I don’t think we can drop any more games. So we’re going to try to do our best. I think we’re getting better every day, every shoot-around. We’re going to try and run it out.”
If that happens, McConnell is certain to be in the middle of it, doing whatever it takes to improve his team’s already gaudy 16.7-point victory margin, and all of it without sel- promotion.
“It’s not a bad day at the office,” McConnell said after hearing of Tinkle’s praise. “But we won, and that’s all I care about.”
Perhaps that’s why Miller added a few minutes later, “In the three years T.J.’s been here, you could make an argument that no player we’ve recruited has been more impactful than him.”
Especially if the only Cactus Cat the pros aren’t looking at leads Arizona to its first Final Four in 14 seasons and its second NCAA crown.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.