The Arizona Wildcats finished nonconference play at 11-2 and in the Top 25 of every major college basketball metric, but that probably isn’t the best way to judge them.
It’s all about potential. They could become much more than that the rest of the way.
If, that is, their mostly young group of seven active scholarship players learns from its wide variety of experiences already, and if Parker Jackson-Cartwright (high ankle sprain) and Allonzo Trier (NCAA suspension) return soon.
“Part of our challenge isn’t just the quality of who we played, but the circumstances that we played the game under,” UA coach Sean Miller said. “We’ve never had, except for a handful of games, more than seven available scholarship players, so if we could get some good health and some good news moving forward, it would be nice to have our full allotment of players.
“And if that’s the case, I think this team has a big upside. Some of the experiences our younger players have received because of the circumstances will make us a little further along in conference play than we otherwise would have been.”
Arizona took a four-day break from the game this week, but they’ll face an early start to Pac-12 play, facing California in Berkeley on Dec. 30 and Stanford on New Year’s Day.
Miller said you never really know if you're ready for conference play until you get in it, but the wide variety of opponents, venues and tipoff times has exposed Arizona already to nearly a full season’s worth of experiences.
“We’ve learned a lot about our team,” Miller said. “The one piece of mind is that we have played a lot of different styles and teams.”
Here’s how the fall semester’s lessons were handed to the Wildcats:
