TEMPE β Sean Millerβs white dress shirt was soaked again Saturday, and this time the Arizona coach couldnβt be happier about it.
βThey killed me with water,β he said of his players. βRuined my only nice tie.β
Miller grinned. For him, that was the βdownsideβ of having his team beat ASU 73-60 Saturday to win a share of the Pac-12 title and tie the best conference mark of any of his eight UA teams.
The Wildcats, having now won or shared the league title in four of Millerβs eight seasons, celebrated loudly in their Wells Fargo Arena locker room. Even from outside their closed door, you could hear yells, cheers and what sounded like singing.
Proof later arrived via a YouTube video the UA released. On the video, players were shown yelling, catching Pac-12 champion hats from equipment man Brian Brigger and dumping water bottles over Millerβs head.
βThere was everything,β Miller said.
And why not? The Wildcatsβ season wasnβt perfect, and they had to share the title with Oregon, meaning they will start Pac-12 Tournament play as the No. 2 seed and open on Thursday at 7 p.m. against either Colorado or Washington State. (Oregon won the tiebreaker because of its Feb. 4 win over UA.)
But the Wildcats could call themselves champs, even after a regular season when they had to overcome obstacles that included two season-ending ACL tears, Parker Jackson-Cartwrightβs sore ankle and Allonzo Trierβs reintegration after a 19-game suspension.
βItβs a great feeling,β Trier said. βSixteen and two β thatβs a tough thing to do in a major conference. Not many teams have that record. Weβre proud of that. Weβre gonna enjoy this.β
Thatβs precisely what Miller told the Wildcats in a short locker room speech following his drenching. While he was made fun of β and made fun of himself β after sweating through a dress shirt during Arizonaβs lone NCAA Tournament game last season, the moisture this time was just drinking water flowing out of small plastic bottles onto his head.
Harmless, happy stuff.
βSo proud of you. So proud of you,β Miller told his players. βWords canβt express how much I care about you guys, how highly I think of this team.β
Then, instead of offering what he called βcoachspeak,β Miller continued the praise.
The Wildcats had posted a better record than the Derrick Williams-led 2011 champs (14-4), better than UAβs 2014 Elite Eight team (15-3) and the same record as UAβs Elite Eight team in 2015.
βThis wasnβt easy,β Miller told his players. βWeβre 16-2. You understand this doesnβt just happen because weβre Arizona. We did it from start to finish, including this game. Very, very proud of you. Everybody stepped up. Letβs just enjoy the hell out of winning this β¦ because Iβm here to tell you these things are hard to come by. Great, great job.β
This almost didnβt happen, actually, at least the way it looked for the first 20 minutes of Saturdayβs game, even with Rawle Alkins posting the second double-double of his career with 11 points and 15 rebounds.
Arizona led just 30-29 at halftime over the Sun Devils despite taking early leads of up to nine points, because ASUβs 3-point shooting was finally coming around. The Sun Devils entered the game averaging 10.1 3-pointers made in Pac-12 games, the second-highest average in the league, but didnβt make one for the first nine minutes of the game.
But 3s from Tra Holder and Kodi Justice pulled the Sun Devils within a point midway through the first half, and another from Torian Graham gave ASU its first lead of the game, 26-25, with 3:51 left before halftime.
Whatβs more, Arizona was shooting just 37 percent overall at that point and made just 2 of 9 3-pointers, while forward Lauri Markkanen picked up two fouls within the first four minutes of the game and continued to show a shaky perimeter shot (he finished with 10 points and nine rebounds but missed all five 3-pointers he took).
The Wildcats were just hanging on, rather than acting like Pac-12 champs.
Miller said that was partly a function of lingering effects from their 77-72 loss to UCLA last Saturday at McKale, when they could have clinched a share of the Pac-12 title then (which would have allowed them to win it outright at ASU).
βSometimes when you lose a game like the one we lost to UCLA, you can lose some confidence and the first half here today our effort was good but I donβt know if we were the most confident group out there,β Miller said. βWe put that behind us and in the second half we clearly were more aggressive and assertive.β
Perhaps not surprisingly, the guy whose Senior Day wound up on a sour note against UCLA, Kadeem Allen, was the one who helped power a quick surge after halftime. The UA rattled off a 10-0 run at the start of the second half, starting a smaller lineup that featured Keanu Pinder at power forward, while Allen had a three-pointer and a rebound in that stretch.
Arizona led 40-29 before Justice finally hit a 3-pointer to open ASUβs second-half scoring with 16:44 left, and the Wildcats maintained a double-digit lead most of the rest of the way.
They did so in part because they wound up making ASU work for its nine 3-pointers over 23 attempts (39.1 percent).
βThe key was to limit their 3-point shots,β Alkins said. βIf they shot them, it was just to make sure they were contested, and we did a great job of doing that.β
Afterward, with roughly 40 percent of the 9,494 fans at Wells Fargo Arena cheering them wildly, the Wildcats headed for their cramped visitorsβ locker room and made the best of it.
It wasnβt a party at McKale. There was no net-snipping. Just a private celebration and a lot of hugs. That was good enough.
βI think all of us left feeling somewhat empty with how our season ended at McKale,β Miller said. βIt was great to see us bounce back.β
