ARIZONA WILDCATS
Record: 30-4 (16-2 Pac-12) AP ranking: 4 NCAA RPI: 2 Coach: Sean Miller, eighth season at Arizona, 218-65 (.770) Best win: 96-85 at UCLA Worst loss: 85-58 at Oregon Best stat: All eight of the Wildcats’ top players in minutes played are hitting 70 percent or better from the foul line. Arizona hits 76 percent of its free throws, which makes a somewhat futile strategy out of sending the Cactus Cats to the line late in hopes they’ll miss. Best player: Sophomore guard Allonzo Trier. There’s more than one reason why Trier was voted the Pac-12 tournament’s MVP this past weekend. Averaging 17.3 points, five rebounds and 2.7 assists while hitting 41 percent of his 3-pointers and 80 percent of his free throws makes the 6-foot-5 shooting guard as complete at his position as anyone in the NCAA tournament. Can be dancin’ in the desert if: If Trier and 7-foot freshman center Lauri Markkanen keep lighting it up from downtown and the Cactus Cats continue to play the rock-solid defense Coach Miller is known for. Arizona lost to West top seed Gonzaga early in the year, but Trier then was serving a lengthy NCAA suspension for taking a banned substance. Prediction: Final Four Coachspeak: “They’re very, very talented. Just look at bench points – it was 33-1. They really expose your deficiencies.” – Oregon State’s Wayne Tinkle after a 71-54 home loss to Arizona
It probably wasn’t Arizona basketball coach Sean Miller’s finest hour. Irked by a timeout UCLA coach Steve Alford had taken in the final two seconds of a five-point Bruins win at Arizona last month, Miller called a timeout with 0.9 second to play in the Wildcats’ 86-75 victory over UCLA in their Pac-12 tourney semifinal last Friday.
“I think we learned from UCLA in that game, just making sure your team is poised moving forward when they called their timeout late, that we wanted to do the same thing,” Miller said in the postgame media conference. “Make sure our team was poised moving forward.”
Told that Alford hadn’t meant any disrespect in February, Miller later added: “I didn’t mean any disrespect, either. Steve told me he was setting his defense up (in last month’s game), and I was setting my inbounds play up (tonight). We were just trying to play the best we can.”
Yet if such an action might call into question Miller’s sportsmanship, it also shows how full of fire and focus he is to reach his first Final Four after falling in the Elite Eight three times in his first seven seasons at Arizona.
And with the NCAA’s “First Four'” round beginning tonight in Dayton, Ohio, Arizona’s best just might be good enough to return the NCAA championship trophy to the desert for the first time since 1997.
That team was led by crafty guards Mike Bibby, Miles Simon and Jason Terry and forward Michael Dickerson. These Wildcats are led by similarly certain NBA players Allonzo Trier (MVP of the Pac-12 tourney after averaging 20.6 points in Arizona’s three wins) and Lauri Markkanen, the 7-foot freshman phenom from Finland.
“Arizona was just so efficient offensively the whole game,” Colorado coach Tad Boyle said after his team fell to the Wildcats in the Pac-12 quarterfinals. “We talked about our ball-screen defense at halftime, and they came out and shot 64 percent in the second half. I mean, they were offensive juggernauts. They’ve got some good players. They’re well coached. They’ve got great balance inside and out.”
Indeed, while sophomore Trier leads Arizona in scoring with 17.3 points per game from the perimeter and Markkanen backs him with 15.6 points and 7.1 rebounds, fellow freshman Rawle Alkins averages 11 points and 5.1 rebounds. All three hit at least 40 percent of their 3-pointers on a squad that also hits 76 percent of its free throws.
Beyond that, two of Arizona’s four defeats in 34 games came when Trier was serving a lengthy NCAA suspension after testing positive for a banned service. Trier said it was given to him following a serious auto accident to help him heal faster. The NCAA said he couldn’t play until the substance was completely undetectable in his body, and that didn’t happen until the Cactus Cats’ season was 19 games gone.
But on the day of his return, helped mightily by Trier’s 12 points off the bench, Arizona whipped UCLA inside the Bruins’ Pauley Pavilion by 11 (96-85), sending a message to the entire college basketball community that the Wildcats would be a national championship contender for the rest of the year.
Or as Miller noted upon the 6-foot-5 Trier’s return: “This means the world to our future.”
The future is now, of course. Seeded second in the West Regional, Arizona faces North Dakota in the tourney’s opening round Thursday night in Salt Lake City. With three wins the Wildcats could meet West No. 1 seed Gonzaga in a regional final in San Jose, Calif. Arizona lost 69-62 to the Zags in December, when Trier was unavailable.
“You always hope that it comes together for you in March,” Miller said at the close of the Pac-12 tourney. “Right now, that’s really what’s happened.”
It would certainly seem that way. And as is the custom with Miller-coached teams, it begins on the defensive end, where the Wildcats are holding opponents to just over 40 percent shooting from the field, just over 30 percent from the 3-point line and 65.4 points on average.
Said Colorado player George King in praise of that defense after the Buffaloes’ conference tournament loss: “Their athleticism at all five positions and their length, them playing collectively as a group. You know, they have very few mental breakdowns as a team, which makes it really hard for their opponents to score on them.”
Said Oregon coach Dana Altman after losing 83-80 to Arizona in the Pac-12 title game: “They’re a great team – tough, hard-nosed.”
Beginning with their coach.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.