Arguably the toughest non-tournament week of the Sean Miller era at Arizona is over, so maybe things get better for the Wildcats from here.
After UA held off Division II Chico State 78-70 in an exhibition game Sunday with just seven players, Miller said he anticipated sophomore center Chance Comanche would be able to play against Michigan State in the season opener Friday after suspending him indefinitely for academic reasons last Tuesday.
Redshirt freshman Ray Smith, who ended his career last week after a third ACL tear in 28 months, showed up smiling in pregame warmups. He’s been scheduled to undergo surgery soon and begin healing before he returns to the team in a non-playing role the rest of the season.
“He’s forever part of our team,” Miller said.
And, there’s, well, Hawaii. The Wildcats go wheels up to paradise on Tuesday, then will spend two days practicing, staying in a top Waikiki hotel and hanging out with American military before facing the Spartans on Friday in the Armed Forces Classic.
So it can’t all be bad for them, right?
Maybe. Maybe not. Allonzo Trier’s eligibility status still hovers opaquely over the Wildcats, and Miller again kept quiet about his top returning scorer, declining to say if he would take Trier along to Hawaii regardless of the situation.
So even with Comanche, the Wildcats might have no more than eight players anytime soon. That’s a nice, tight, Miller-type rotation maybe, but one that won’t be able to afford significant injuries, foul trouble or fatigue.
It isn’t hard to imagine how Sunday’s game, when Chico crushed UA on the glass in the first half and trailed by just a basket entering the final minute, might look a lot like the second game of a Pac-12 weekend.
“Believe me there’s a negative effect to that,” Miller said of playing shorthanded. “You can get away with over in a short period of time, maybe in a single game, but in the Pac-12, playing a Thursday-Saturday ... it’s hard to play with great effort for that long of a period of time when you play two games in three days.
“We’ll welcome back Chance as our eighth guy. … (But) hopefully we can get through things injury free and foul trouble is a big, big deal. When we had a few things happen in the first half, where a guy like Kadeem (Allen) can’t try to steal the ball 40 feet from the basket. Parker (Jackson-Cartwright) fouled his guy on an underneath, out-of-bounds play. Those are things they would have done a year or two ago. On this year’s team they can’t do that.”
The margin of error will be too thin. It was almost too thin on Sunday, in a game where an eight-point victory margin was slightly deceiving.
Chico State, a Division II power that is loaded with an unusual mix of continuity and size, managed to outrebound Arizona 17-10 in the first half while taking a 40-37 lead at halftime.
The Wildcats of Northern California moved the ball efficiently, played with composure early and managed to get three-point shooters good looks on many occasions, hitting 6 of 12 from long range before halftime.
They also mixed in a variety of defenses that threw off Arizona, using a matchup zone, conventional zone and man-to-man defense.
“I feel like we competed very highly,” Chico State center Justin Briggs said.
Chico State, which shot a total of 53.6 percent in the first half, went ahead 29-17 by the time Corey Silverstrom made a three-pointer midway through the first half. While Arizona prompted four Chico turnovers over the next 75 seconds, helping it to later go ahead 30-29, the game stayed close the rest of the half.
“They came out and punched us out in the beginning,” said Allen, who had 15 points, four assists and two rebounds.
“We had to come back in the second half.”
They did, barely. Despite scoring nine straight points after a 44-44 tie early in the second half, Arizona never took a double-digit lead on the visiting Wildcats, and went into the final minute ahead just 73-70.
But Arizona, which hadn’t lost an exhibition game since Seattle Pacific beat it 69-68 in 2011-12, received a layup from Dusan Ristic with 38 seconds left while free throws from Allen (1 of 2) and Lauri Markkanen (2 of 2) made for the final margin.
It was the end of a long but productive afternoon for both Allen and Markkanen. Allen logged 33 minutes while playing both guard spots and filling the box score, while Markkanen lasted 34 minutes, scoring 21 points on 5-for-10 shooting, making 3 of 4 three pointers and hitting all eight free throws he attempted.
The Finnish freshman also has had to play center, power forward and start learning small forward, in case Trier doesn’t come back.
“I’m used to playing a lot of minutes, so that’s not bad,” Markkanen said. “It’s just learning three positions, set plays and to guard little bit smaller guys. It’s an adjustment but we’re working on it every day. I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
