CHICAGO – Like a lot of folks might have when they saw this year’s NCAA Tournament brackets, DeAndre Ayton figured the Arizona Wildcats had a pretty good road to the Phoenix Final Four.
“I thought they had this tournament,” Ayton said. “I think this was the year to really get to the Final Four.”
Arizona was stopped two games shy of making it, in a 73-71 loss to 11th-seeded Xavier in the Sweet 16.
Asked his thoughts on that game, Ayton said:
“I don’t think Lauri (Markkanen) took a lot of shots. He didn’t take all his shots,” Ayton said of the Finnish big man, who was 3 for 9 against the Musketeers. “That’s their shooter. (Allonzo) Trier, I think he took a lot of bad shots but a lot of stuff wasn’t falling for him. Xavier did a good job of shutting (UA’s scorers) down.”
