Whether it’s in the NCAA tournament, a home-and-home series or a neutral site such as the Staples Center, Arizona and Gonzaga keep managing to find each other.
This will be the fourth straight season that they’ve met, while they’ll also face each other next season in Phoenix and are both scheduled to play in the 2018 Maui Invitational.
UA coach Sean Miller is fine with all that. In fact, he’s the one who agreed to take the Wildcats to the Gonzaga campus last season for the first time ever, returning a game the UA won at McKale Center during the 2014-15 season.
“We’re gonna continue to play Gonzaga because they’re one of the best programs in college basketball,” Miller said. “To have the opportunity year in and year out to play against them in a true away game or a neutral game makes a lot of sense, especially if you consider who they are in the West.
“I admire the program, the coach, and I love their team this year. … You have to admire every single thing about their program on the court, off the court, their tradition, the quality of players they are able to maintain year in and year out.”
Miller said it was also important to play Gonzaga in Los Angeles, a city that’s “really important to our program’s history” (and traditionally a big UA recruiting ground).
“And on national television, that’s the type of games you want to play in at Arizona,” Miller said. “But they can also run you completely out of the city of L.A. if you’re not ready to go because of how great they are.”
